Recipe from Saveur November 2015
I am always happy to find a recipe on Saveur because you can rely on them to come up with something interesting. I love collards, but finding recipes beyond sautéing with ginger and garlic or the very traditional Southern style with bacon or hammock, can be a challenge. This immediately caught my eye and it does sound really delicious, and you can use your turnip greens too. I have had a dish similar to this one at a big annual African dinner we held in Sonoma County. It was delicious!
2 lb Collard or Turnip Green leaves, roughly chopped (12 cups)
1 cup dried Shrimp
4 Scotch Bonnet or Habanero Chiles, stemmed, seeded, and finely chopped
1 1/2 medium Yellow Onions, (1 roughly chopped, 1/2 sliced into 1/4” thick rings)
1 Tomato, cored, seeded and roughly chopped - Since we don’t have ripe tomatoes yet I would use a little bit of my house made canned sauce
4 TB High Temp Vegetable Oil, the recipe calls for Red-Palm, but I would use Coconut instead
2 TB Tomato Paste - since I am planning on using my sauce I would skip this ingredient and cook my sauce down a bit
1/2 cup Natural Peanut butter
Kosher Salt and freshly ground Black Pepper
Bring 2 cups water to a boil in a large saucepan and season with salt. Add the collard greens, cover, and cook until the leaves are tender and wilted, about 5 minutes. Drain the leaves in a colander set over a bowl and reserve 1 cup of the cooking liquid. Place the leaves and reserved liquid in a blender, puree until smooth, and scrape the paste into a bowl. Clean the blender and return it to its base. In the blender, combine the dried shrimp with three-quarters of the chiles, half the chopped onion, and the fresh tomato and puree until smooth. In a large saucepan, heat 2 TB oil over medium high. Add the remaining half of the chopped onion and the tomato paste and cook, stirring constantly, until the onions are soft and lightly caramelized, 6 to 8 minutes. Scrape the shrimp and tomato paste into the pan, reduce the heat to medium, and cook, stirring until lightly caramelized, about 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, stir in the pureed collard greens and peanut butter, and mash until evenly combined. Season the greens with salt and pepper and scrape into a serving dish. In a 10” skillet, heat the remaining 2 TB of oil over high, add the onion rings, and cook, stirring, until soft and slightly caramelized, about 5 minutes. Arrange the onion rings over the collards and garnish with the remaining chile.