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.
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.
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! Love kale! Definitely going to give this recipe a try :)
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