Ingredients
200 g whole spelt berries (ideally soaked overnight)
2 red onions
200 g cavolo nero (around 10 leaves)
1 shallot
1 t vegetable stock
2 cloves garlic
juice and zest of half a lemon
handful of whole almonds
2 t dried sage
smoked paprika
salt and pepper
olive oil
4-5 fresh sage leaves (optional)
Serves: 2 adults.
Cooking time: 45 minutes.
Method
If you did not pre-soak the spelt, then parcook it in a pressure cooker with 400ml of water for 20 minutes. Leave to steam for a further 5 minutes. It will still be al dente. If you don’t have a pressure cooker, you can also cook the spelt from scratch in a pot, but it is going to take at least 45-50 minutes. Be aware that 200 grams doesn’t look like much, but spelt swells a lot when cooked. If you did the pre-soak, jump to step 2.
Turn your oven grill to high. Cut the ends off the red onions, peel them, and cut each into eight segments, keeping the pieces intact if possible.
Once the oven has heated up, put the onions carefully onto an oven tray lined with baking paper for an easy clean-up. Drizzle with olive oil, season with pepper, salt and a teaspoon of dried sage. Place into the oven for 25 minutes. Check after 15 minutes, carefully turning the onions over. They will be done when they are soft and charred at the edges.
Prepare a pot of around 1.5 L of boiling water (it is most energy efficient to do this by boiling the jug and then pouring the water into the pot).
Place the whole almonds in a small bowl with 1 t olive oil, pepper, salt, 1/4 t smoked paprika and a pinch of dried sage. Mix thoroughly. Place onto the same oven tray as the onions and cook for up to 10 minutes, stir once or twice. Keep an eye on them, they should be well cooked and browned, but they tend to burn quickly under the grill. Alternatively, you can cook them in a pan, stirring occasionally. I recommend making extras, these make delicious snacks.
Strip the leaves of the cavolo nero away from the thick rib (i.e., the stem) running down each leaf. You want 200 grams without the ribs, which you can discard. Cut the leaves roughly. Then blanch in your pot of boiling water for around 2 minutes. Set the cavolo nero aside in a colander to drain, retaining around 200 ml of the cooking water.
Dice shallot and gently brown with a small amount of olive oil and a pinch of dried sage, in a heavy-bottomed pan. Pour the spelt berries into the pan with the shallots and reduce any liquid. Add 1 t of dried vegetable stock. Then slowly add cooking water, as if this were a risotto, mixing regularly to ensure it does not stick. This will take around 15 minutes. If you are cooking directly from soaked, you should allow for an extra 10 minutes and add additional liquid as needed. Cook until all of the liquid is absorbed and you are happy with the texture.
Take a frying pan. Heat up a little oil and add sliced garlic cloves. After 30 seconds, add the cavolo nero to the pan and brown it for 2-3 minutes. Then add the cavolo nero to the spelt risotto, with the juice and zest of half a lemon. Mix and taste to adjust seasoning and acid. Leave on a low heat so it stays warm.
If using fresh sage leaves, heat up 2 teaspoons of oil in the same pan and crisp up sage leaves in it. This should take 2-3 minutes.
Serve the cavolo nero risotto in a large bowl. Gently place the onions on top. Throw over the smoked almonds, then pour over the sage oil and the crispy sage leaves.
The story behind the recipe
Uncooked, cavolo nero is the colour of a dark green tile that wants to be blue; but with a little heat it turns a glossy emerald. The front of the leaf is crinkled in three-dimensions, like fingers left in the bath too long; its delicate veins visible only at the back. Sometimes given the misnomer black cabbage, cavolo nero is a sturdy, Tuscan variety of kale.
I once sat in a restaurant on Cuba Street in Wellington in that in-between time before dinner, watching a chef with an enormous pile of kale, stripping the leaves away from the ribs with an easy rhythm. That was enough for me, I’ve prepared my cavolo nero the same way ever since. It gets over the awkward issue that the stems take much longer than the leaf to cook.
Cavolo nero has a long season that extends through winter. Skiing in Wanaka, years ago, I woke up to the eerie quiet of fresh snow. Looking out from our rental into the the neighbour’s back garden, the only thing still visible, standing upright against the blanket of white, were the skeletal, tall cavolo nero palms. The neighbour brought over a bag of it later that day, still glistening with melted snow and we talked about his attempts, ultimately successful, to build opposition against the then Government’s proposal to mine in New Zealand’s national parks.
In Scotland, we cooked cavolo nero simply, with lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, pasta. It was delicious, we wanted more vegetables and less pasta. Afterwards though, I find myself thinking about the firm bite of whole spelt, something that could hold its own against the cavolo nero. Now that I am back in The Netherlands, stuck quarantining, I order more cavolo nero in a box of vegetables that is delivered right to my door. A quiet Sunday inside to cook, reunited with our kitchen at long last. I abandon the idea of adding butternut squash, too complicated; I burn the almonds, I try again. The almonds are a nod to an excellent Scandinavian inspired restaurant (a restaurant!) we went to in Scotland. They smoked theirs and served them with a tangle of broccoli rabe. I’ve suggested smoked paprika as a shortcut. The onions are a welcome softness against the dense chewiness of the spelt and cavolo nero, the nuts and sage offer crunch. The dish has a subtle earthiness.
Perhaps the defining feature of the way I cook is my readiness to substitute. Likewise, these recipes are open-source. Imagination and improvisation are encouraged. If you read this and you think maybe I could just do this with ordinary risotto rice, do it. Use green puy lentils or giant pearl couscous in place of the spelt. If you don’t have cavolo nero, no matter. Use swiss chard, kale, or even ordinary old spinach. Serve this with a side of greek yoghurt, or a cloud of finely-grated parmesan cheese if you like, drop the almonds. Serve it hot, or serve it cold as a side salad at a (vegetarian) barbecue, with crumbled feta and a mustardy dressing. Everything is possible.
Thank you so much for reading. Stay tuned for next week.
Amelia.