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Jim Dixon wrote about food for WW for more than 20 years, but these days most of his time is spent at his olive oil-focused specialty food business Wellspent Market. Jim’s always loved to eat, and he encourages his customers to cook by sending them recipes every week through his newsletter. We’re happy to have him back creating some special dishes just for WW readers.
A few years ago, a famous food writer told me about the oxtails from Chicken’s Kitchen, a tiny, mostly take-out restaurant in Gretna, across the Mississippi from New Orleans. Self-taught chef Marlon Chukumerije—nicknamed Chicken—brought the traditional meat-and-three concept from the Louisiana countryside to the city. On the first Tuesday of the month, he cooked oxtails. When I was in the Crescent City last month, I knew I’d miss the monthly oxtails but made the 20-minute drive to pick up some fried chicken anyway.
Chicken’s meat-and-three consists of your protein of choice. Since it was FryDay, I got the fried chicken and fried ribs, along with three sides from a long list, including macaroni and cheese, jambalaya and crawfish hushpuppies along with candied yams, smothered cabbage and something called coco greens. A cook told me they cooked the collard greens in coconut cream. When I got back across the river and finally opened the styrofoam box for an early dinner, the greens looked like the standard collards you’d get anywhere across the South. But instead of the typically porky, earthy greens often punctuated with the tang of vinegar, these were slightly sweet and nutty.
Back in my Portland kitchen, I made a pot of collards like I always do: Cook some onion in olive oil while I chop the greens, add them along with a splash each of soy sauce and apple cider vinegar, but instead of water for the braising liquid, I poured in a can of coconut cream. After a long, gentle simmer there was still a little more liquid “pot likker” than I like, so I bumped up the heat a little and reduced it by about a third. The finished collards don’t taste like coconut, but they do have that subtle sweetness that tempers the earthy flavor.
Recipe
½ medium onion, chopped
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 bunch collard greens, chopped
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1 6-ounce can coconut cream
Kosher-style sea salt to taste
Cook the onion in the olive oil with a good pinch of salt over medium heat until it starts to soften, about 4-5 minutes. Add the collards, soy sauce, vinegar and coconut cream, reduce the heat to low, cover, and cook for about 40 minutes. Remove the lid, increase the heat to medium and cook until the liquid has reduced by about one-third. Taste and add salt if needed.