I braised some collards this evening. Actually, true confessions time: due to the continuing hot weather, I did the desperation microwave braise again. Anyway ... many cookbooks advise you to just discard the stems of the collard leaves, but somehow, throwing out perfectly good veggie-parts just offends my tightwad sensibilities. Plus, I have discovered that I really like the collard stems. I slice them up thinly to equalize their cooking time with the leaves, and then toss 'em all in together.
I love the way the collard stems get when they're braised (even when desperation microwave braised). The insides get creamy-textured but still with a little bite. Almost gelatinous. Really analogous to the texture of certain high-collagen braised meats that I love so. Vegetables that, with the appropriate cooking techniques, capture that meaty texture are really great for mollifying my "meat tooth" despite my new low-meat ways. Vegetable stems seem to be especially given to this kind of texture when braised, like broccoli stems, and cauliflower stems and cores. Root vegetables produce a slightly different texture, but still a satisfying one.
Braising isn't the only technique that can produce this texture in veggies. Roasting is especially good at bringing out their meatlike tendencies, even in relatively watery vegetables (the roasting drives out a lot of that moisture). The other night I sliced and roasted a couple of bulbs of fennel, and the section right around the root got wonderfully creamy, plus sweet in that way licorice does. I roasted them with chunks of onion and a liberal grinding of black pepper and they were terrific.
With this continued heat, it's become really hard to persuade myself to do any kind of cooking at all, even desperation microwaving. But I will still try and sneak in a panful of roasted veggies in the cool hours of the morning, simply because the results in terms of texture are so rewarding.
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