AKICILJ: the bitter green edition

[mrissa]

timprov has already done the grocery shopping this morning, because he is efficient like that, and he has returned home with beets. Red beets! Golden beets! We have beets. We also have plans for beets.

What we do not have plans for, but have quantities of anyway, is beet greens. They come attached to the beets. They are huge and luxurious and occupying more of our fridge than I really expected.

Does anybody know of anything nice that can be done with beet greens? My mother is not fond of this type of green, so my first line of culinary inquiry is not helping this time around. I like recipes, but I also like "cook 'em for awhile with some of this and some of that" level of specificity--does not have to be measured in tablespoons. (Or coffee spoons. Or T.S. Eliot.) (Bonus points for T.S. Eliot, though.)

Comments

[lotusice.livejournal.com]

In Samoa, you use taro greens like this:

Cut out a fair amount of the lower stalk, and the tip of the leaf. (Probably an old wives' tale that cutting the tip off keeps the bitterness away but doesn't hurt.) Make a "bowl" out of a few taro leaves, then shred up the rest and put them in the bowl. Add coconut cream. (Cream, not milk, not juice... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_cream)

You can add onions if you want, or even fish or chicken. Salt is good.

Fold the extra leaves over the whole thing and bake it for around half an hour. You can wrap it in tinfoil if you want, but the leaves alone should work.

The resulting stuff is usually eaten heaped up on pieces of steamed or roasted taro. You could probably put it on potatoes or bread.

Real palusami is unbelievably addictive. I've had it made with spinach and was less impressed - I'd bet beet is closer to the original and might be pretty nice, depending on your coconut tolerance. I'm a huge coconut fan.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That sounds like it would be so awesome if I could stand coconut. Sigh. I keep trying it with hopes that this will have changed.

[lotusice.livejournal.com]

"I know you'll like it this time!" :D

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Heh. Yes, but it's better to do that to oneself than have it imposed from the outside.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

I do that too. So far I have become accustomed to coconut milk in Thai curries, but only if they're so hot I can't taste anything. This is suboptimal, and I've decided to stop trying.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Are you coming back for Fourth Street? If you are, we could go to Peninsula or Rice Paper, and you could sit next to people eating coconut in things but could stay strictly de-coconutted yourself.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Let's do it! We can be the Unbecoconutted Corner.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

There is much unbecoconutted awesome to be had at these places, I assure you.