Stewing mustard greens

At the restaurant.

“What are those green little tubes you’re eating?”
“Green beans”.
Well, those beans were not of the most common variety found here, almost a connoisseur’s choice. That questioning didn’t sound strange to me then.
“And do you know how we call those little green tubes with hats?”
“Okra”.


In these times of ready-to-eat frozen food, many people think that those bushy areas in the supermarkets are just landscaping or gardening. But I’d like you to know that there’s lots of things you can eat there with little cooking effort.

One example are mustard greens - yes, greens, not that yellow stuff that you can find in a tube or single-serve packet at the fast food. Believe me or not, they are a bunch of green leaves that you can actually eat. You’ll find it at the grocery section, identified as “Mustard greens”.

As for any green leaves, sanitation is important (see the post about sanitation somewhere here in this blog). Slice the leaves finely. Smash a garlic clove and stir it fry in olive oil until golden brown. Then add the mustard slices and let them stir fry in the pan for a few minutes. Feel free to build a mountain of leaves in your pan, since stirring fry the mustard reduces greatly their volume. Additional water is not required.

Now it is just salting it at taste (being careful, of course) and it will taste good, fresh and a little spicy. So go ahead. Be brave and face the jungle!