Zuni Cafe's Kale & Poached Eggs

For the first time this week I cooked out of a Christmas present from my mom, The Zuni Cafe Cookbook.  A big fan of Zuni from when I lived in SF during the 90's, I still enjoy stopping in on a Sunday morning for brunch and a Bloody Mary with the paper straw and minced red onions.  In a Passover state of mind (whatever that means for a waspy girl), I decided to use my roast chicken carcass to make stock then allow myself to be inspired by Judy Rodgers.

For the stock, I threw in the remains of my roast chicken and whatever veg I had on hand: broccoli, an onion, entire daikon radish, garlic, etc.  Covered with water, added a little salt and let simmer away on a medium-low heat while I napped the late afternoon away.

      

I came away with lots of lovely stock to use for immediate cooking and froze one cup servings in zip lock plastic bags for further use later in the spring.  I freeze lots of things this way. Ratatouille, homemade pesto, ice cream, gizzards, etc.

     

In response to the great beef ingestion (indigestion) of March 27th at Totoraku, I am focusing intently on vegetables the rest of this week.  I chose to be inspired by boiled kale and poached eggs, however, instead of boiling the kale in water as the recipe calls for I boiled it in fresh chicken stock.

I also decided the meal needed some carbs for my tennis playing maniac husband and some broccolini for good measure.  At the store, I noticed a box of "express polenta", or polenta that cooks in under two minutes. I can only assume there was some extra processing done to the corn meal to make it absorb water faster, and since last week's challenge was to avoid food pretending to be something they're not I went for regular corn meal.  (It's not like polenta is overly time consuming to begin with). Kale, olive oil and broccolini also made it into the cart along with cara cara oranges (my fruit obsession du saison), new potatoes and Fage yogurt.

  

Start by sauteing a minced onion in olive oil, add garlic and chile pepper flakes at will.  After the onion reaches a rich translucency, saute the heaps of kale until it wilts into a thick mass of greenery. You will be surprised at how much kale can fit in your pot as you wilt it a little at a time.

Cover the kale with liquid, lid the pot and cook for about 30 minutes.  At the end of the thirty, I took the lid off the pot and allowed some of the liquid to reduce.

Typically I make polenta with water, I learned somewhere years ago that this is the way peasants make their polenta in Italy, and normally I see no difference to veer from the norm except in seasoning.  But with fresh chicken broth in the kitchen (a rarity I tell ya), I went thataway.  At the end I added a drizzle of olive oil for some extra richness. No dairy.

Quickly blanched the broccolini, the sauteed in olive oil, rosemary and a little garlic.

I no longer use a fancy egg poacher. I had one when I first got married and used it often, but damn it was hard to clean. Eff that. Into the bin. Now I simply poach them in an almost simmering water bath with balsamic vinegar then gently flip them with a slotted spoon.

Sprinkle a little parm on top of the warm polenta for some cheesy pop without a lot of dairy weighing you down.

And while my poached eggs may look more irregular than the ones served atop your Frisee au Lardons at Anisette on Sundays, they are just as tasty.  With this meal, I have adhered to several of Pollan's call outs: avoid advertised foods, the low-fat and lite, foods claiming to promote good health on their labels and the unpronounceable.  The really great thing about the meal, aside from the flavor and its quality as leftovers for lunch this afternoon? I didn't set out to meet one of more of Pollan's advisories, I actually just craved kale and poached eggs.  This could be contagious.