Video:Kale With Garlic and Chickpeas

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Transcript:Kale With Garlic and Chickpeas

Hi. I'm Erica Wides from chefsmartypants.com, here for About.com. And, today I want to talk about kale. It is super, super nutritious. It's one of those top ten super foods that you should be eating more of.

Cut the Kale

The dish I'll be making today with this kale is - kale that is sauteed with garlic and chick peas. And you could turn this into just a vegetarian entree. And we're going to just sautee this kale, but the first thing I need to do to the kale is trim it and wash it. What I like to do is cut about an inch below that rubber band. I'm just going to take off those kale stems. And then I'm just going to cut this kale down into pieces that are about two or three inches long.

Wash the Kale

Now, we need to wash the kale. Put it in a big bowl. And, run the water. You want to make sure that you give this kale a really good bath. You can either fill up your whole sink or put it in a large bowl. That way any loose dirt that's floating around will be able to separate from the kale and sink down to the bottom of the bowl. <><> After you've given the kale a good bath, what you want to do is actually lift it out. You don't want to take the bowl and pour it because any dirt at the bottom will go with it. Because I'm sauteing this kale and kale is heart tough green having that little bit of moisture left on it will actually help when I cook it because it helps the kale to wilt. So, I'm not spinning it dry, I'm just putting it in this towel and going to fold the towel up and give it a little shake. Sort of my own natural salad spinner.

Sautee the Kale

So, I have a nice big pan on the stove here. But any large flat sautee pan would be great. I've got a tablespoon of olive oil. And, I don't want this pan super hot. I don't really want my garlic to burn. I like to let the garlic cook very gently. Kind of like infused into the oil. Give the garlic about a minute to cook. Now, I'll turn on my heat a little bit and in will go the kale. The kale's going to go on the pan and I want to pick up all that garlic with it. Cause I don't want the garlic to stay in the bottom of my pan.

Now, I'm going to season the kale with some salt and some pepper. It's not like spinach that just collapses. The kale really takes some time. Be careful to regulate your heat so that the garlic doesn't start to get too dark. You can see the garlic in this pan is staying a nice, light, toasty brown.

So, now my kale has wilted down quite a bit. It's probably down to about half the volume that it was at. And, you can see it's getting darker. Now, what I want to do is just give it a little bit of steam and a little bit of flavor. Just about a tablespoon of wine and then put a lid right over it. I'll just give this about a minute to let the wine really cook and to let the steam do its job.

Finish the Kale Dish

So, the lid comes off, the chick peas go in. These are canned chick peas, so they're already cooked. So, all you have to do is warm them up. The kale is wilted, the chick peas are warmed through. And you can see that the garlic is toasted, but it's not burnt.

So, here's a great kale dish. Sauteed kale with garlic and chick peas - great for a vegetarian meal, a side dish. Thanks for watching. To learn more, find us on the Web at About.com.