Recipes using Winter Greens

And some of my favourite citrus fruits too

Lots here for you today. There are five recipes, and a general method on how to deal with sprout tops which are used in two of them.

I also want to give you a quick reminder on two things as I have been asked about both recently:

First, the concept of Zero Minutes. This is very simple - you bring your cooker up to pressure and immediately remove it from the heat. This is especially pertinent when cooking greens, because that is frequently all the cooking they need. Cooking can continue in the residual heat if you don’t immediately release all the pressure as the cookers will stay at pressure for a short while before starting to drop. The less time the cooker is actually on a heat source the more fuel efficient, so I like using this method a lot.

Secondly, water levels. I keep getting asked about the manufacturer’s minimum requirements which I have established are stupidly high. PLEASE do not ruin your food by adding more water than I state in the recipes - your dishes will be waterlogged and soggy and over cooked too because they will have taken longer to come up to pressure. For a reminder about water levels, take a look at this post:

Now, onto today’s recipes. We were having a conversation recently about seasons. Adam (for those of you who are new, Adam is my 15 year old son) was saying he prefers winter to all the others, and while I find it impossible to choose, in terms of food I do find winter hard to beat. It isn’t just about all the beige comfort food (potatoes and cheese rule) but is also down to two main groups of foods - citrus fruits and leafy greens.

The best of the year’s citrus appear throughout the winter - bergamots, bright, neon green in late autumn when their aromatic oils are at their most fragrant and best for sweet desserts, slightly more muted going into spring when I think they work better accenting savoury dishes. Mandarins - early season dark green ones, with their sour juice and the best, most intensely fragranced floral zest (excellent for ceviche or crudo, or), then ripened to a still fragrant sweetness by February/March. Yuzu - insanely expensive of course but you can do so much with one single fruit.

3 whole yuzu, luxury

Sour oranges - the Sevilles which seem to start earlier every year go right through to the preserving season of January/February. 'And not just for marmalade! All the other orange fruits - clementines, proper tangerines (such a distinct, slightly earthy flavour). There are many others but these are my favourites.

As well as all their obvious uses in desserts and baking, they all add zing and depth to your savoury dishes and give lemons a well earned break. And I’ve been saying this for years, but winter is the best season for the enjoyment of preserving. Before Christmas - or if you are very organised, in Jan/Feb earlier in the year, you can make all the things you can use in your Christmas baking - candied peel, citrus sugars, liqueurs and syrups. Then after Christmas you can concentrate on the jams, confits, marmalades. Turn away from the grey of January and embrace the warm fug of a citrus infused kitchen, that’s what I say.

green mandarin

Then there are the leafy greens. The kales, cabbages, sprouts and sprout tops, kalettes, all the multihued types of chard, spring greens, broccolis - all of which are grown in the UK. The cime di rapa (turnip tops/broccoli raab) and punterella and a host of different bitter leaves from Italy (and grown here now too). For the most part, they are all much more robust so generally more versatile, especially when it comes to pressure cooking. The absolute worst thing is overcooked, sulphurous greens.

And of course, combining the greens with the citrus makes a lot of sense, and most of the dishes here do just that.

All of today’s recipes put greens front and centre. I have mentioned specific greens for these recipes, but really, they are pretty much interchangeable. So take whatever I use as a suggestion - really, what I had to use on the day - and use whatever you like.

I can happily eat any of these dishes on their own, I think some people would prefer them as an accompaniment to a piece of grilled fish or meat (my menfolk definitely would) and there is nothing wrong with that. The cooking times are so short that adding fish - simply lay seasoned fillets on top - would work with pretty much all of them them too.

Lightly Spiced Broccoli with Leeks and Cherry Tomatoes

This one is based on a recipe I saw in Ixta Belfrage’s latest book Fusao (more on this book another day).

Her recipe involved roasting cherry tomatoes in coconut milk. I have kept quite closely to her spicing, but I have made one or two tweaks and substitutions, mainly because I saw the recipe and desperately immediately wanted to eat it (how often does a recipe book make you feel that?!) and had to improvise a little. But one or two tweaks were out of preference too. Her recipe takes half an hour in the oven. Mine - with the addition of leeks and greens - takes the time it takes the cooker to come up to pressure.

I was eating this when I had a very sore throat (which I still have - I have no voice and feel like I’m being stabbed in the throat every time I swallow) and I was clearly craving the goodness of the ginger and citrus and didn’t want much else. I ate it on its own. And then the following day I made it again and piled it onto a very thin omelette, topped with a big handful of microgreens. Shariq and Adam had it on the side of a steak and ale pie from the farmer’s market (a proper one, no palm oil in the pastry, just lard and butter). It would also work really well over rice or noodles or look very dramatic ladled over some black beans.

1 tbsp coconut or olive oil

1 leek, sliced into rounds

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

15g piece ginger, finely chopped

A small bunch of coriander, stems and leaves separated, finely chopped

1/2 tsp chilli flakes (use fresh if you prefer)

1/2 tsp turmeric

generous pinch cinnamon

200ml coconut milk

zest and juice of 1 mandarin (I used a green one), 1/2 a Seville orange, or a lime

Cherry tomatoes

Green of your choice - I had broccoli to use up, it would be excellent with kalettes, sprouts/tops, wedges of cabbage

Heat your pressure cooker and add the olive oil. Stir in the leek, garlic, ginger, coriander stems and spices, and immediately pour in the coconut milk. Stir for a minute to combine and make sure any solids in the coconut milk have melted, then season with salt and pepper.

Stir in the mandarin zest, then drop the cherry tomatoes and greens on top. Close the lid and bring up to high pressure. Immediately remove from the heat. For al dente broccoli, immediately fast release. For a softer finish, leave to stand for 30 seconds to a minute, then release the remaining pressure.

Stir in the mandarin juice and garnish with the coriander leaf before serving.

Sprout Tops, 2 Ways

I am buying up all the sprout tops at the moment. If you like them and can’t find them (it is probably my fault, I’ve taken them all. No, seriously, ask for them; farmers markets seem to sell out of them pretty quickly - I ask mine to put them aside for me as they vanish as soon as the market opens. And greengrocers and farm shops can get them too. I don’t know why they don’t feature in supermarkets. It can’t be a keeping issue as they keep just as well as every other leafy green vegetable.

Why do I like them so much? It is mainly the variation in both flavour and texture. You get tiny, nutty little sprouts, the slightly bitter, dark outer leaves which take very slightly longer to cook and the very tender, sweet hearts. 3 in 1.

How to prepare sprout tops.

Cut off the outer leaves and roughly chop if very big, then pare off all the little sprouts that cling to the stem. If the stem is very woody, I discard until close to the heart at the top. Cut the heart from the stem and cut in half or in quarters, depending on size, from top to bottom.

Then when cooking, make sure the outer leaves are at the bottom and the hearts on top. The outer greens need the intensity of the heat from the base of the cooker if they are to be cooked at the same time a the hearts.

Here are 2 dishes using them:

Sprout Tops with Mushrooms and East Asian Flavours

This is a very quick thing, the sort of thing I do on autopilot for lunch. I’ll maybe add a fried egg, over easy so the yolk breaks into the sauce. Or a soy cured egg yolk if I have had to the foresight to make some.

I like to use dark and light soy sauce - dark for flavour, light for the salt. But you can use just the dark and season with salt. And as you can see from my ingredient notes below, use whatever citrus you like!

2 tbsp olive oil

15g butter

1 small onion or shallot, finely chopped

200g mushrooms, thickly sliced or halved

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

10g ginger, finely chopped

A pinch of Chinese 5 Spice

2 sprout tops, prepared as described above

For the sauce:

2 tbsp dark soy sauce

1 tsp light soy sauce

1 tbsp mirin

1 tbp rice vinegar

Juice of 1/2 orange, 1 mandarin or 1 yuzu

To finish:

zest of 1/2 orange, 1 mandarin or 1/2 yuzu

A dash of sesame oil

First mix all the sauce ingredients together.

Heat your pressure cooker and add the oil and butter. When the butter has melted and foamed, add the onion and shallot and the mushrooms. Stir until glossy, then stir in the garlic, ginger and 5 spice.

Stir in the outer sprout top leaves for a minute or two until you can see that they are wilting down a bit, then sprinkle in all the tiny sprouts and put the hearts on top. Season with pepper, but not salt if using light soy sauce.

Pour in the sauce and give the cooker a shake just so everything looks evenly spread - there should be no need to stir to deglaze, but if you want to do so, be careful and make sure you leave the hearts on the top.

Close the lid and bring up to high pressure. Immediately remove from the heat and leave to stand for 30 seconds. Release the rest of the pressure.

Rasp over the zest and add a dash of sesame oil before serving.

Sprout Tops with Haggis

Yes, seriously. I had some leftover haggis (unusual, but I’d done more than usual sides) and thought this would be a good use for it. And it was - the rich, peppery haggis is an excellent foil for sweet/bitter sprout tops. It would work well with anything else, but I imagine any kales, kalettes and cabbage, including red cabbage, would be good. Imagine it over pasta too, especially long ribbons of something like pappardelle.

You will see from the photo I also threw in some cauliflower that needed using up. I’ve included it in the recipe here, but it is not mandatory. The reason I say don’t stir in the recipe below is that if you mix haggis with water, it will become starchy and might stop your cooker from coming up to pressure (see this post for details on why this happens)

For instructions on how to pressure cook Haggis, all in one method with swede, carrot and potato, see this post.

1 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

1/2 cauliflower, cut into small florets

200g leftover Haggis (ie, already steamed)

2 sprout tops, prepared as above

Heat your pressure cooker and add the oil. Add the onion and cauliflower and sauté until the cauliflower is dappled brown. Add 50ml water then sprinkle in the haggis. Don’t stir! Top with the sprout tops, outer leaves first, then sprouts, then hearts. Season with salt and pepper.

Close the lid and bring up to high pressure. Immediately remove from the heat and leave to stand for 30 seconds. Release the remaining pressure. Stir to combine and eat as is or with a carb of your choice.

Creamed Brussels Sprouts with Leeks, Prunes and (optional) Bacon

This could grace a Christmas table very happily as a side dish, but also doesn’t do badly as a pasta sauce. If I were going for the latter, I’d probably add a couple of cloves of finely chopped garlic too and maybe a little dried thyme.

1 tbsp olive oil

100g unsmoked bacon, diced

500g Brussels sprouts, trimmed and shredded

15g butter

2 leeks, sliced into rounds

75ml white wine

75g pitted prunes, roughly chopped

1/2 tsp ground allspice (optional, it makes it a little bit more Christmassy)

150ml double cream

Heat your pressure cooker and add the oil. Add the bacon and fry on a high heat until crisp and brown. Add the leeks and Brussels sprouts and continue to fry until they take on a little colour.

Add the butter. When it has melted pour in the white wine. Stir thoroughly to deglaze, then add the prunes. Season with plenty of salt and pepper and stir in the allspice if using.

Close the lid and bring up to high pressure. Immediately remove from the heat and leave to stand for 30 seconds before releasing the remaining pressure. Return to a low heat and stir in the double cream. Heat through gently before serving.

Wedges of Roast Cabbage with Hazelnut Pangrattato

This can be served as a side dish, or you could chop it all up and serve it as a salad, with some extra greens. I have also made it as a panzanella, using chunks of bread fried in oil with garlic and instead made a gremolata type thing with orange zest, finely chopped hazelnuts and parsley.

Both versions feel quite Christmassy and the wedges just with the dressing and pangrattato would make a great side dish over the Christmas season. I would make it even more colourful with some pomegranate or maybe some sherry soaked dried cranberries.

Alternatives to cabbage? Without a doubt, halved torpedos of endive or other bitter leaves. You could also go mellow with lettuce or use broccoli and/or cauliflower.

For the cabbage:

2 tbsp olive oil

1 small cabbage, cut into slim wedges (or 1/2 of two different cabbages as I have done)

For the dressing:

Juice of 1 orange

1 tbsp maple syrup

1 tbsp sherry vinegar

For the pangrattato:

1 tbsp olive oil

25g coarse breadcrumbs

25g hazelnuts, roughy chopped

zest of 1 orange

1 tsp dried thyme

1/2 tsp chilli flakes

Small bunch of parsley, finely chopped

First roast the cabbage. Heat your pressure cooker and when it is very hot, add the oil. Immediately add the cabbage wedges. Don’t crowd the cooker - if it is too tight a fit, do the searing in 2 batches. Sear on the cut sides until well browned - it should only take a couple of minutes each side. Season with salt and pepper.

Add a good splash of water and close the lid. Bring up to high pressure and immediately remove from the heat. Leave to stand for 30 seconds, then release the remaining pressure. Arrange the cabbage in serving dish or platter.

Make the pangrattato. Heat the oil in a frying pan and add the breadcrumbs and hazelnuts. Fry until the aroma of the nuts intensifies and starts to smell toasted, then remove from the heat and stir in the remaining ingredients.

Add the orange juice to the pressure cooker and simmer until it looks syrupy. Add the maple syrup and sherry vinegar and simmer for a further minute. Pour the dressing over the cabbage, then top with the pangrattato.

Finally, please take a look at the INDEX which has a lot of other greens recipes, especially winter friendly ones using cheese. And I have to remind you all about

which I always bring out this time of year.

I will be back soon, most likely on Sunday, with a a little reminiscing about this time last year (it was intense), batch cooking, and letting go of Christmas control freaking. Which is HARD. Thank you all for reading. I hope you enjoy the recipes - if you do, please like, restack and share with anyone who you think might like them and need a nudge towards pressure cooking. I think these recipes are especially good for that as they are so incredibly fast!

Until next time,

Catherine xxx