Robert's Collards!

Last Saturday after a nice breakfast with my father and some of my sisters in Pensacola, I ran my errands. My first stop was Bailey's Farmers Market on Davis Highway. It was there that I discovered Robert. Oh, I've seen Robert before at Bailey's, he is usually there on the day I go but I had never chatted with Robert before but because I asked his permission to take his photo with my phone, I got the experience I am about to relate regarding cooking collards. Robert quickly grabbed up some corn and posed for me asking if I would bring him a copy of the photo. Won't he be surprised he will be an internet sensation with my vast blog readership! Anyway, during our conversation I discovered that Robert was a great cook. When I asked what his specialty was he proudly proclaimed "Everything". I saw my chance - I asked him about collards. I have never been able to cook collards very well. Being of New England and French Canadian DNA, and military brat living in subdivisions and military posts as I grew up, I thought maybe it was not possible for persons of my upbringing to actually cook good collards but I am here to tell you, that is not the case. Robert has helped me see the light of collard cooking and that is what this blog post is all about!

First, you have to clean the collards. I remember my mother in law telling me years ago that you had to fill the sink with water and add salt so the bugs would crawl out. OK then. I have personally seen escaping insects using that method from greens that were picked from her garden - so although Robert did not specifically tell me to do that, I did it anyway. Can't be too careful about those insects.

The trick of preparing collards, according to Robert, is to pull the leaves off the stem by hand, then roll the leaves up, and cut them about 1/2 inch wide. But he advises to get those ham hocks going before you do all this rolling and cutting. And those ham hocks can be found many places but I went to Barnes Supermarket on 9th Ave. for mine - where I also discovered from one of the butchers that they have the best and most economical ground beef in town at $1.99 a pound, which they grind there.

Now here is where it got a bit dicey. The butcher told me that he has been cooking collards for 50 years and he does something different with the ham hocks than Robert. A dilemma indeed. I chose to do sort of a mix between the two bits of advice and this is what I did - I cooked the ham hocks just for about ten minutes and poured the water off - then I added more water and cooked the ham hocks about 1.5 hours. Robert had said to cook the first batch of water with hocks 30 minutes and the second batch 30 minutes but the butcher tells me that 1.5 to 2 hours is the key for the ham hocks. The butcher does not pour the water off at all. I think next time I will go with the butcher.

As the ham hocks were cooking I was rolling and cutting, rolling and cutting, then I started a bunching/rolling hybrid and cutting - then I gave up and bunched and cut. I am NOT a patient prep cook.

I had to put the collards in the pot in batches because they don't all fit in the pot at one time. I also diced up one jalapeno which is a Robert ingredient, and added pepper. No salt until the end and you can taste to see if they need any salt due to salt in the ham hocks. Mine did not need any extra salt and the jalapeno adds just a little bit of kick - actually I added the jalapeno in the ham hock water.

Brighter green = NOT DONE

The collards cooked about 45 minutes and were done and counting today I have had them four times, there is still more in the refrigerator and they are good but...

The best thing about this experience was meeting Robert and that I discovered what I had been doing wrong. First, drowning the collards in too much water and second, cooking them too long.

So there you have it. Yankee DNA can cook greens! 

INFORMATION AND MAP LINK TO BAILEY'S FARMERS MARKET :   https://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&q=bailey%27s+farmers+market+pensacola&fb=1&gl=us&hq=&hl=en&hnear=&t=m&z=17&vpsrc=0&iwloc=A&cid=8792499842492601142