Photographed yesterday in natural light
Cavolo Nero
Cabbage is the current chosen ingredient The CookingBites Recipe Challenge and I've been creating a few recipes using Cavolo Nero and thought that as some of you may not have come across it, I would write something.
You could regard it as the sexy cousin of kale. It is also sometimes called Black Cabbage or Black Kale. Its leaves are a deep dark green, almost reptilian in appearance, with a bubbled and corrugated surface, rather like the outer leaves of Savoy cabbage. But this is where the similarity ends. Cavolo Nero is dark green, and lean; no bloated shape and no pale heart. Its elegant long leaves retain their texture and darken to almost black when cooked. It’s attractive crinkled appearance has made it popular with chefs looking for a more interesting alternative to better-known cabbage varieties. The bubbled surface of the leaves is excellent for retaining sauces, so it can be used to good effect in pasta dishes. Its dramatic colour (think of green as the new black) looks stunning with red or yellow accompaniments so its also good in stir-fries or soup.
As befits kale’s chic cousin, Cavolo Nero is Italian by birth, originating from Tuscany. The distinct wrinkles on the leaves are caused by the drop in temperatures during their growing season, which helps to sweeten the final taste. For the last few years it has been grown successfully in Lincolnshire in the UK and sales in Britain have been rocketing. Until recently, it could only be purchased from the more up market supermarkets in the UK and I’m not sure how available it is in other countries. But just this week I bought the handsome bunch featured in the photograph above, from my local Aldi (a cut-pirce UK supermarket). It was grown here in the UK and cost me just 79p!
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