Collard Greens

We had four Thanksgivings this year.

• Just my wife and I on Wednesday.
• With my mother for lunch on Thursday.
• With my father for supper on Thursday.
• With my wife’s family on Friday.

My mother is going through some mild chemotherapy and said that she wasn’t going to do much and wanted us to bring a dish. Then she sent me a list of about 10 dishes that she was going to do. So I guess she changed her mind. Anyway she covered all the bases, so there wasn’t much left for me to choose from. I decided to bring collard greens.

The trick to cooking collard greens is to be patient and start the night before. Crock pots work best. Fresh collards should be roughly chopped, leaving large pieces, about the width of lasagna noodles. I sliced one large banana pepper and 4 ounces of fat-back and placed them in the bottom of the crock pot. On top of that, I placed the chopped collards. To that I added enough water to just about cover the greens, about 12 cups. (You don’t want to cover the greens because they will reduce as they cook.) To this I added a tablespoon of ground black pepper, a half tablespoon of kosher salt, a fourth a cup of cane syrup, and a tablespoon of sherry vinegar.

I then let it slow cook for about twelve hours, stirring occasionally. The final dish is sweet and mildly hot and best served straight out of the pot.