serves 6
Many years ago, I came across a recipe for slow-cooked spinach and oranges from the Mani, the bone-dry southern tip of the Peloponnese, where little else beyond orange and olive trees flourish. This is a variation on that, with kale, a relative newcomer to the long-standing members of the Brassica family that are mainstays of the Greek traditional table. You can also make this dish with any variety of sweet greens, such as Swiss chard or beet greens. It stands on its own with a little feta and good bread, but also makes a great side to any number of fish, seafood, and chicken recipes.
2 pounds (900 g) kale
⅔ cup (160 ml) extra-virgin Greek olive oil
6 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 oranges, peel on, cut into 8 wedges each
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Remove and discard the kale stems and rinse the leaves well. Dry thoroughly in a salad spinner.
In a large wide pot, heat ⅓ cup (80 ml) of the olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook until soft. Stir in the orange wedges and cook for 1 minute.
Add the kale, in batches if necessary, and stir so the garlic and orange wedges are distributed evenly among the kale leaves. As the kale wilts, add more, stirring again, until all the kale is in the pot. Cover and cook for 20 to 25 minutes, until the kale is very tender. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Remove from the heat and drizzle in the remaining ⅓ cup (80 ml) olive oil. Serve hot, warm, or at room temperature.
It’s impossible to talk about the vegetable- and other plant-based dishes of Greece without touching on the role of olive oil in Greek cooking. Although per capita consumption has decreased in the last few years, probably another “victim” of the Greek economic crisis, Greeks in Greece still consume more olive oil than anyone else on the planet, at approximately 15 quarts per person annually. The country is the third largest producer of olive oil.
Much of it is consumed as the de facto cooking fat and flavoring agent in a whole category of recipes called ladera, after ladi, the Greek word for “oil.” These are by and large vegetable and bean stews or baked vegetable and bean casseroles. Many are vegan and tied to the long periods of fasting on the Greek Orthodox calendar; many are seasonal, such as the luscious eggplant dishes of a Greek summer and the hearty baked bean dishes from all over the country.
Home cooks of a few generations ago knew that a ladero dish was done when the only liquid left in the pot was the olive oil, infused, of course, with the sweet flavors of slow-cooked tomatoes, garlic, onions, and herbs, as if to describe a kind of stovetop emulsion, a unifying and softening of ingredients and flavors with olive oil as the silky conduit. Indeed, slow-cooked vegetables and beans impart their natural sugars, making everything from leafy greens to chickpeas to eggplant more palatable. Greek vegetable cookery is rich with a great variety of comfort foods as a result. Their underlying natural sweetness and soft textures are soothing balms for the palate and the body. It’s no wonder that even kids learn to eat and love vegetables on the Greek table!
For the most part, ladera dishes are cooked in very little liquid, but with a copious amount of olive oil, not uncommonly up to 1 cup (240 ml) for 2 pounds (900 g) of vegetables. By simmering over a few hours, bean and vegetable dishes caramelize slowly; their inherent softness makes them easier to digest. And, perhaps most important of all, that olive oil left in the bottom of the pot is where all the nutrients reside.
Many nutrients, especially beta-carotene, an antioxidant, are fat-soluble, not water-soluble, so we don’t absorb them simply by chewing and swallowing foods containing them. Cooking in olive oil allows us to extract and absorb these nutrients more efficiently.
The sweet, unctuous taste and texture of ladera vegetables and beans are almost always balanced with a little acid: lemon juice and vinegar are close at hand in most Greek kitchens. Feta, the briny Greek cheese, and even Greek yogurt provide a beautiful counterpoint to the comforting unctuousness of most of Greece’s ladera dishes.
