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Kudus for Kale

Last summer we inadvertently planted twice the number of kale plants that we usually do - something to do with my poor labeling of the seedlings, no doubt. We ended up with about a dozen plants, a fortunate mistake that we intend to repeat. Kale plants are big: each stood over two feet tall, and was loaded with lovely green curly leaves reaching out a foot or more.

As people whose parents remembered the great Depression of the 1930's, Karen and I could not let any of those leaves go to waste. In addition to eating them all summer and fall, we blanched, bagged and froze leaves five times over the course of the late summer and fall. We put 50 quart bags of kale into our freezer, and this winter we are enjoying the leaves of our labor. It will all be gone by summer.

Unlike spinach, kale has great resilience when cooked. It doesn't get limp, but keeps its crispy character. In order to stop the enzymatic reactions that would otherwise make it tough, we blanched the kale before freezing: We dropped it into a huge stock pot of boiling water for 3 minutes, put it in a bowl with ice, drained it, dried it on a tea towel, and bagged it in freezer-grade zipper bags. Please note: 3 minutes was not enough to bring the water to a re-boil, but was long enough to do the job.

Even though it is related to broccoli and cauliflower, I rarely eat kale plain, steamed with butter. It needs a little dressing up. Here is what I did on a recent snowy night: I sautéed half a large onion and 3 cloves of our garlic in olive oil. Then I chopped up a whole frozen tomato, one of many that we harvested last summer and kept in the freezer for winter stews, and I added that to the frying pan. I took a quart bag of frozen kale, chopped it, and added it to the pan at medium heat. I added a dash of white wine, added spices, covered and cooked for 3 minutes.

Kale works well with a whole panoply of spices: I like it best with some zing, preferably chipotle pepper powder from New Mexico. But mustard powder and coriander or cumin are good with it, too. Fresh ginger shaved with a carrot peeler, then chopped, is great cooked with kale. Lemon juice is a natural companion for it, as is white wine.

Portuguese cooks use kale in a variety of wonderful spicy soups/stews. I make my own version by sautéing slices of linguica or chourico sausage with onions and garlic, adding tomatoes - fresh or frozen - kale, and cooking with stock and a little white wine. Oregano and basil deserve a spot in the cookpot, and fish if I have it. Yes, mussels, clams, shrimp and haddock go well with the kale and sausage.

A friend who grew up in Falmouth, Massachusetts gave me her recipe for Portuguese Stew as it is made down there. It includes a bunch of kale, a pound of linguica or chourice sausage, a pound of green or yellow beans, 2 pounds of potatoes and a quart of chicken broth. I think some chopped tomatoes added to this stew would help it along. The sausage provides hot pepper and spices.

Growing kale is easy. I like to start kale indoors in mid-March, and put the seedlings in the garden in mid-May. They are very frost hardy. I plant them about two feet apart as these are big plants. They like full sun, but (like any leaf crop) part sun will do the job - save your full sun for tomatoes and squash. Kale doesn't need lots of fertilizer, but some compost mixed into the soil will help. We harvest leaves all summer for stir-fries, but do most of our harvesting in the late fall, as a little frost makes them taste better. We cut out the mid-ribs before freezing.

So, if kale hasn't made your list of seeds to buy, get with it! Our favorite variety is just called "curly kale". But they're all good.

Henry Homeyer is the Vermont/NH associate editor of People, Places and Plants magazine. His web site is www.Gardening-Guy.com