Recipe: roast chicken with kale and spinach gratin, with roasted kumara

Roast chicken with kale and spinach gratin, with roasted kumara

First, make the roasted garlic that you'll add to the kale and spinach gratin. To roast garlic take a whole bulb of garlic, slice the top 1/3 off until you can see the individual heads are revealed. Place the garlic onto a sheet of foil and cover with a generous splosh to olive oil, some salt and pepper. Fold the foil up to make a pouch and bake at 200 degrees Celsius for 30 - 35 minutes. The garlic will be soft and easy to squeeze out after this time. Reserve until you're ready to use it. 

I was watching Rachael Ray recently and she made this recipe with swiss chard, which I think is what we call silverbeet. I decided I could probably do it with the kale and spinach I had in my refrigerator. Here's the link to Rachael's recipe but I have made some modifications.  

• 2 1/4-2 1/2 pounds Swiss chard or rainbow chard (3-4 large bundles) – for a quick shortcut, substitute 4 boxes spinach (10 ounces each), defrosted and wrung dry
• Salt
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 cup flour
• 2 1/2 cups whole milk (We have lite (2%) so I used that)
• Pepper
• Nutmeg (I didn't use this)
• 1 bulb roasted garlic, cloves squeezed from skins and pasted
• 2 cups Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, freshly shredded (I didn't have any so I used grated tasty cheese)

Serves 4

Pre-heat the oven to 200°C.

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Stem the chard (I used a mix of kale and spinach), leaving the leaves whole. Wash them well before use. Salt the boiling water, add the chard and wilt – the pot will be packed at first.

Boil the chard for 10 minutes, then drain it in a colander and run it under cool water. Let the chard drain once again and squeeze out the excess liquid in a clean kitchen towel (I wasn't prepared to lose a towel so I used my hands and squeezed hard). Chop.

Meanwhile, heat the butter over medium heat. Whisk in the flour, cook 1 minute, then whisk in the milk. Season with salt, pepper and a little nutmeg (I didn't because I didn't have any). Stir in the roasted garlic paste. Thicken the sauce to coat the back of a spoon and adjust the seasonings, to taste.

Layer half of the greens in a medium casserole (8-10” long). Top with half of the béchamel sauce and half of the cheese. Repeat the layers, ending with cheese. Bake for 15 minutes and serve.

I served this with some roasted orange kumara (sweet potato for anyone who doesn't live in New Zealand). 

We also had some roast chicken - a lazy roast chicken choice tonight, but a very yummy one.

Yum! This was definitely a hit in my house. I'll happily eat kale again, I might try it without a creamy sauce next time too.