I love cooking with coconut milk. It has the perfect consistency for making vegetable dishes filling and rich and can be either sweet or savory. It’s also good for our immune, cardiac, and digestive systems. This recipe uses coconut milk as a base for cooking collard greens, a popular leafy green in West Africa, the American South, and many other parts of the African diaspora. Add in the butternut squash and you have an elegant, unforgettable dish that just might change the way you think about vegan food forever.
Lisa’s first trip to Dakar was special for many reasons, not least of which was her introduction to my aunt Marie’s sauce feuille. This dish is a genuine representation of my roots—generous, heartwarming, and nourishing in all the right ways. It’s traditionally made with moringa, cassava or sweet potato leaves, and cabbage. Here, I use collard greens, which are easy to find and still create that homey green color and rich, textured flavor, but if you can source the more traditional cassava leaves, use them!
This recipe is a summer favorite from Chef Chris Wiliams of Lucille’s Houston. Chris marinates a whole side of fish, (on the half shell means skin-on, scales-on) for 10 minutes and then quickly grills it skin-side down. His marinade is where the magic comes in. It’s elemental with freshly-squeezed lemon juice, thyme, garlic and the earthiness of smoked paprika. He serves it with coconut rice and a slightly wilted collard green salad. It’s summer eating at its best.
Pull out a big heavy stew pot and get some greens going on the back of your stove for wonderful mid-week eating à la Brittany Luse, cultural critic and host of It’s Been A Minute from NPR. Serve on top of Brittany’s Weekend Grits.
If the mainland's caldo verde is an uptown kale soup, then this Azorean version is definitely its downtown cousin. It's a more rugged dish. This is my mom's recipe, which she's been making for almost 50 years. What I like about it, and what my mother always insists on, is that it has a sizable amount of chouriço -- not the miserly single slice of caldo verde.
I grew up eating fried cornbread next to bacon-infused collard greens, often for breakfast. My grandfather would rise with the sun, don his button-up flannel and loose Wranglers, and prepare a hearty meal that would keep his stomach humming for hours while he toiled in his vegetable garden and woodshop. The combination of rich, nutty cornmeal and those sweet, slow-cooked collards is a memory worth keeping. Here I’ve paired those well-suited mates in a more unusual but still delicious way. I think Papa would approve.
Collards are quickly becoming the new “it” green and for good reason. Easy to find and packed with nutrients, they are unusually satisfying and hearty. Here, I give them a fast stir fry and then finish them in a red coconut curry. The sweet gentleness of the coconut plays beautifully off the richness of the dark green. I top the greens with crispy rings of fried shallots.
Collards must boil for at least two hours. Whatever nutritionists might say, collards were not made for quick cooking.
Making the stuffing a day ahead gives it a chance to come into its prime. Serve hot or at room temperature.
Ingredients