Great article! That's what we had for our midday meal today with minor adjustments. Although I am a true Southerner, both by choice and by birth, I do not care for collards. I like almost all other "greens", but my mother rarely cooked collards so I did not grow up eating them. We also had them for both Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, but my husband got them already cooked at the Piggly Wiggly because I have not ever cooked them myself. We had both cabbage and turnip greens today instead. We also did not have hog jowl, but we did have a delicious baked ham from Honey Baked Hams. I baked some corn bread, but my husband made some fried corn bread which is a particular favorite of my SIL. My 8-month old grandson ate his first traditional New Year's Day meal as did two 18 year old neighbor boys who happened to stop by just as dinner was ready. All three enjoyed it very much as did we all!!
The trick to cooking collards is to have really good tasting clean water.
Collards are best torn from the leaf stalk or stem and remove all the large vein stems in the leaves.
Collards are very strong in taste.
Get a very large pot of water boiling with no salt or pepper, but just water.
After it comes to a rolling boil under a covered lid, then put your collards into the water and turn the boil down to a gradual boil after about 10 to 15 minutes.
This is where you want to keep your cooking temperature for about 2 hours.
Stir your collards about every 30 minutes.
After about 2 hours, add your chopped green onions and any meat you choose to season your collards with.
At 2 and one half hours cooking time, salt and pepper to taste, and I like to add a stick of real butter, but I cook a lot of greens when I do them (maybe three or four regular paper grocery bag bundles).
Also add a little apple cider vinegar to it, to taste, maybe a half a cup or a full cup.
At three hours, they should be done.
You can drain most of the liquid off, if you like, but I usually just use a serving fork to lift the collards out of the liquid onto each plate, or let each individual get what they want out of it.
Have fun, and remember that dark greens have the most micro-nutrients (
video 1,
video 2, and
video 3 )that your body needs to get energy into your cells, especially
if you're diabetic.
.jpg)
One other thing, at Piggly Wiggly, look for "BAMA Mayonnaise" and if they don't have it, ask for it.
SAUER'S Mayonnaise will do, but BAMA is best because it has a stronger vinegar taste.
Try it, and I think you'll love it.
