Meditating on Mustard Greens

"Mustard greens are leaves from varieties of brown mustard that have been selected for their foliage rather than their seeds. Their texture is more delicate than that of cabbage. They're often quite pungent in the fashion of seed mustard, but are usually cooked, which may leave them mild and cabbage-like or intensely bitter, depending on the variety. " - Harold McGee in On Food and Cooking

I'm tempted to make some sort of esoteric comment from that passage on the mustard green. Something to the effect of...when we find ourselves in the big frying pan of life (i.e. "being cooked") we can choose to become mild and cabbage-like or intensely bitter. But I'll refrain and just stick to the less abstruse concept of cooking this beautiful bouquet of Brassica.

Drawn to the viridian plumage of this vegetable while shopping at PCC several days ago I only paused for a moment to ponder two questions: Do I like mustard greens and if I do, how do I cook them? Having no definitive answer to either query I placed the colorful crucifer into my cart and continued shopping.

When it came time to consume the mustard greens I tasted a bit raw and was taken aback by the commanding bitterness that filled my mouth. With great alarm I thought ,if cooking could make these even more bitter (as Harold indicated) how could I ever eat them? I rushed to the cookbook shelf looking for a clue as to how one might turn these greens into something edible. No answers were found there. I then consulted one of my favorite sources when faced with the dilemma of how to cook any vegetable. Debbie. I'm not sure who Debbie is but from what I gather she farms and runs a CSA. This woman has the most comprehensive database of vegetable recipes that I've come across. You can search by recipe or read her newsletters about different items in this week's CSA. Go Debbie!

Though I found several mouth-watering descriptions of recipes that could include mustard greens, I didn't have many of the ingredients and wasn't in the mood to do a lot of improvisation. So I resorted to simply braising my mustard greens as I would any green that has the privilege of occupying my vegetable drawer. I sliced half an onion, very thinly and placed it in some heated olive oil. Once the onions were slightly browned, I chopped up the mustard greens and put those in, stirring to coat with the oil. At this point I would typically add some mirin and some tamari, however, I'm not consuming soy right now so I did mirin alone. I put the lid on and waited a few minutes for the greens to wilt but keep their color. At that point I took them out of the pan and put them in a large bowl with a dash of umeboshi vinegar to finish.

In the end, the mustard greens reacted to my treatment mostly mild and cabbage-like.

How would you react?

Munching on Mustard Greens,
Jenna