Asian Style Southern Collard Greens | Double Umami

Today I'll show you how to make the most explosively flavorful fried collard greens of your life. We'll use two untraditional, umami-packed ingredients to turn this classic dish into something like you've never tasted before, I'll explain why some southern grandmas freeze their greens before cooking, and I'll show you how to pickle the stems so you never have to throw them away again. Now we're going to deviate from tradition today by using a three-step layer and seasoning process. We'll first fry the greens in bacon fat and reduce their liquid to concentrate the flavor. We'll then braise them in a super savory Japanese stock called dashi, and we'll finish by seasoning the greens with a peppery Korean kimchi base. If you've never heard of dashi, this simple stock is the foundation of Japanese cooking, and it's one of the most umami-packed ingredients on earth, but it only takes about 15 minutes to make. It's made of a type of dried seaweed called kombu that is super high in naturally occurring glutamates, the flavor molecules that make food taste good. It's then finished with salted and smoked fish flakes called katsuobushi. The combination of these two ingredients work together to excite your taste receptors and amplify the flavor of other ingredients. If you've ever had miso soup, for example, this is what it's made of. You'll find kombu in most Asian grocery stores in bags like these, and the katsuobushi is usually lurking somewhere nearby. To make dashi, first off, don't be afraid, because this is the most simple recipe on earth. So let's start with six cups of water in a small pot. To that, add 45 grams of kombu, turn the heat on medium high, and bring it just up to right before it's simmering. And you don't want to actually simmer the kombu because it can turn the broth bitter and slimy. So right as you see some small bubbles starting to hit the surface, remove the kombu and turn off the heat. Then toss in 45 grams of katsuobushi, put a lid on the pot, and allow it to steep for approximately 10 minutes. After you've infused the bonito flakes, strain the stock through a fine mesh strainer, and this is it. This is the simple stock that is the foundation of Japanese cuisine. Now, if you're thinking, man, you gotta be a Nassau scientist just to make this, don't worry, because you can also find a pre-made product called handashi at most grocery stores. It's basically just dehydrated pellets that you mix in simmering water to reconstitute. And this is perfectly acceptable. Handashi is used in Japanese households much more often than homemade dashi for sheer convenience sake. The next umami-boosting ingredient we'll make is a Korean kimchi base. This is a moderately spicy blend of aromatics, seafood, and Korean chili flakes called gochugaru. It's this base that is combined with all sorts of vegetables to make the traditional Korean delicacy kimchi, which is a type of salted and fermented vegetable dish. The only out-of-the-way ingredient you'll need to make this is Korean pepper flakes, called gochugaru. And in spite of its resemblance to much hotter varieties of pepper, gochugaru is quite mild. On a heat scale, it's around a 2 out of 10. And this is a perfect substitution for the crushed red pepper flakes you'll often find in old-school collard green recipes. To make the kimchi base, we'll start with half a cup of sliced onion in a food processor. Then toss in one tablespoon of chopped jalapeno, a quarter cup of sliced green onion whites, one tablespoon of minced ginger, five cloves of rough chopped garlic, two teaspoons of sugar, and one and a half tablespoons of gochugaru. Then blend it on high until you have a fine paste. Next, in a small non-stick pan, heat up two and a half tablespoons of a neutral oil over medium heat. Add the chili paste and saute for a few minutes until everything is cooked through. Then, to put some stank on it, deglaze the pan with one tablespoon of fish sauce and work it into the paste. This is also going to add a ton of savoriness to our kimchi base. When the fish sauce is incorporated, kill the heat and add one and a half tablespoons of white vinegar and one tablespoon of light soy sauce. Then mix thoroughly until everything is well combined. And this is a basic kimchi pepper base that we'll use to spruce up our collard greens after we braise them in the dashi. Now, because I'm a man of the people and I like to leave you all with options, you can also find this kimchi base pre-made at most Asian grocery stores. It's typically in the refrigerated section near the other kimchi items, and it will come in little jars like these. I actually prefer the pre-made base for collard greens because its flavors tend to be a little more bold than the homemade variety. For the greens, you'll usually find them in bunches like these. And you'll want to buy about 4-5 bunches for this recipe or whatever gets you to 2 pounds of leaves. I know it sounds like a lot, but they're going to wilt down into something much more manageable. If you can find bunches with smaller leaves, these tend to be much sweeter and more tender. But if you can only find the ones with large leaves, these are perfectly fine too. To prepare the collards, we'll need to remove the stems. And there are several different ways of doing this, so I'll show you the way most people do it, and then I'll show you the correct great-grandmother approved method. So what you want to do is take a leaf and fold one half over the side of itself like this. Then take a knife and slice down the stem to cut off the leaves. And this is the first way to remove the stems. The way we do it in my family is the rip and pull method. You'll just take the leaves and fold them over onto one another like this. Then grab the bottom of the stem and pinch near the bottom of the leaves where they meet the stem and pull them off like a ripcord. Now, most people throw the stems away, but grandma farmer would have skinned my hide if I was so wasteful. So later in the video I'm going to show you how to pickle these to make a delicious little snack. But to finish the greens, cut them in half lengthwise down the middle so you have two halves of each leaf. Stack several on top of one another and roll them into the shape of a cigar. Then make cuts crosswise like you're doing a large chiffonade, and you'll end up with small pieces like these. Now the next step is of critical importance. You've got to wash the greens under several changes of water. Because of how they're grown, greens tend to be very sandy. So fill up your sink with water and toss in the greens. And the traditional way of cleaning is to add a bit of white vinegar and some coarse salt and rub the leaves together to ensure all the dirt is removed. Then remove the greens, drain and clean the sink, and repeat 2-3 more times. And I always use straight water for the last wash. And if you don't want to go through all this rigmarole, you can also find pre-cut collards in big bags like these. These are good, but I want you to notice one thing. They always say they're double or triple washed. This is fake news, ladies and gentlemen. You still need to wash them once or twice because they can still be gritty. After the greens are washed, I always dry them off with a salad spinner, but you can also blot them dry on towels. Not a lot of people dry their greens before cooking, but I think it improves the flavor because they won't be diluted as much with extra water. And I know you're probably thinking, dear lord, I don't have a pot big enough to handle this mountain of greens. Oh ye of little faith. We'll be adding these in batches and they will wilt down while cooking, so I promise a moderately sized pot will be able to handle all of this. Now to cook the greens, let's start by adding 6 ounces of thinly sliced bacon to our cold pot. Then turn the heat on medium-low. What we're going to do here is slowly render all the fat out of the bacon while crisping it up. We'll be using this fat to fry our greens to add a smoky depth of flavor. And this should take anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes. And after the bacon is done to your liking, remove it with a slotted spoon, leaving the grease behind. And if this is haram, you can just start with any neutral oil. Then turn the heat on medium and add 1 thinly sliced yellow onion to the pot. Onions yearn for bacon grease. Is there anything better than this smell? And we're going to sweat this onion until it turns translucent. On an unrelated side note, these wooden spoons will strike terror into the heart of any misbehaving child that lives in the south. As a wooden spoon survivor myself, I can confirm this. But after the onions are translucent, toss in a handful of the greens and stir them into the onions and bacon fat. Keep stirring until they've wilted down to a manageable level, then toss in the next bunch and continue the process until you've added them all. And what we'll do now is continue frying the greens until they've given up most of their liquid. What this does is concentrate the flavor, adding much more depth than if we had just braised them from the outset. Just keep pulling the greens to the side like this to see if there's any liquid still seeping out. And when you notice there's not a lot left and you start to hear sizzling, toss in four to five cloves of thinly sliced garlic and stir them into the greens. Then pour in four cups of the prepared dashi. Give everything a stir and bring it up to a light simmer. Then turn the heat down to low or medium low and put on a lid. We're going to braise the fried greens in the dashi anywhere from one to two hours. It's hard to give you an exact number because everyone has their own preference. I typically just do an hour because the frying step really jumpstarts the tenderizing process. After your time is up, remove the lid and test one of the greens. If it's still tough, put the lid back on and continue cooking. If everything seems good to go, kill the heat. Now we'll do step three, the final seasoning. So let's start with a quarter cup of the kimchi base. And I like mine a bit spicy, so you may want to start with less. Stir the base in until everything is well combined. Then toss in two tablespoons of mirin and two tablespoons of unseasoned rice vinegar. The mirin is going to add a bit of sweetness and the rice vinegar will brighten everything up with a very mild acidity. Then give it a taste. It's going to be somewhat bland, so we'll need to adjust the seasoning with salt. I start with half a teaspoon at a time and continue tasting after each addition. I generally find I need somewhere from two to four teaspoons of salt to get to where I want to be. But be gentle with it because the kimchi base is quite salty. The very last thing I like to do is add just a touch of sugar, a quarter teaspoon at a time, until it tastes perfect to me. Collard greens can be slightly bitter sometimes, and just a dash of sweetness will help counteract that. You won't really taste anything sweet, it'll just tame that mild bitter note. To plate, I like to put the greens in a bowl and pour over the liquid, which is called pot liquor. This liquid is a southern restorative. It supposedly cures everything from Paris Syndrome to broken legs. And it's one of the true delicacies of southern soul food. To finish, garnish with a bit of the crispy bacon. And I know, this dish is so ugly it's gotta sneak up on a mirror. But I promise you, collard greens are one of the great joys in life. If you've never had them, you're really missing out. And very quickly, before we put a hurtin' on these greens, I want to tell you about a few tricks I've picked up over the years. Firstly, collard greens are at their peak flavor-wise right after the first frost has hit. There was an old granny I used to know who would clean, wash, and dry her greens. Then she'd put them in large bags like these and toss them in the freezer overnight to mimic harvesting them in the winter. It supposedly crystallizes the moisture in the greens, which makes them more tender and sweeter. And you'll just take them right out of the freezer and cook like normal. Secondly, if you're having issues with your greens still being tough no matter how long you cook them, what you want to do is go all scientific and toss in about a quarter teaspoon of baking soda during the braising process. What this does is make the braise slightly more alkaline, which will help tenderize the greens more quickly. And finally, if you have a bunch of stems left over and you don't want to waste them, what you want to do is slice them into little coins like these and saute them with the onion. The stems are a bit tougher than the leaves and they take longer to become tender, so you need to jumpstart the cooking process with them. Or if you want to pickle the stems, just cut off the thick woody ends and throw them out. Take the tender stalks, trim them of any leaf remnants, peel them, and cut them into little slices. Then, to a small pot, add half a cup of apple cider vinegar, half a cup of water, one tablespoon of sugar, two teaspoons of salt, and whatever aromatics you like. I'm doing garlic and jalapeno. Bring it up to a simmer, toss in the stems, and cook for about one minute. Now kill the heat and let it come to room temperature. Then add the pickled stems to a covered container and refrigerate overnight. And these will last for about a month in the fridge. Now, back to the taste test. Now, I don't want to lose my soul food card, but I think we've stayed true to the classic flavor combinations that make collard greens such an iconic dish. And we've introduced some new and interesting flavors to the mix. And if you enjoyed this video, be sure to check out this other one YouTube thinks you'll like. Thanks for watching. See you next time.