Kale and White Beans

It's full-on September now and I can feel a shift both in my cooking and what I want to eat. Stews will no doubt start to feature more prominently on this blog now, including this kale and white bean stew. This stew feels so Tuscan to me, probably because the way I make it is hardly different from Tuscan bean classics ribollita and pasta e fagioli. Seriously, add stale bread to kale and white beans and you have ribollita. Add ditalini and you have pasta fagiole. 

As good as those two dishes are, right now, we're keeping simple carbs like bread and pasta to a minimum, so it's just plain kale and white beans for us. Not just any kale and white beans though. It's cavolo nero and cannellini, both staples of the northern Italian kitchen. I like them not because they are Italian in origin, but because they are both best in class.

Kale and White Beans: Cannellini and Cavolo Nero

The initial step in almost any stew or ragout is to prep the vegetables that you will sauté and leave in the dish to lend their flavor to it. Collectively, these vegetables are known as many things in many regions: mirepoix in France and in restaurant kitchens worldwide, sofrito in the Caribbean and the Portuguese-speaking world, trinity in Cajun Louisiana, Suppengrün (soup greens) in Germany, and soffritto in Italy.

Soffritto: Vegetable Prep

My usual soffritto consists of onions, carrots, and celery. However, because of the horrid wildfire situation and not being able to get out to the farmers market for almost three weeks, the pantry was bare. Just like anyone in Italy would have done, I improvised with what I had on hand. This soffritto was a leek, two smallish carrots, half a mangy zucchini, and half a shallot. It worked.

Destemming Cavolo Nero

Next up is prepping the kale. There's nothing special to it, but there is a useful trick for destemming kale. Gently but firmly make a fist around a leaf of kale so that the naked stem base sticks out between your thumb and index finger. Then with your other hand, grasp the base of the stem and pull it out of your fist so that the leafy part stays behind. Discard the stems on the compost pile. Stack, roll, and slice the leafy green part of the kale.

My preference for kale has always been the Italian kale called cavolo nero (black cabbage). It is also known as lacinato, Tuscan black kale, and, as much as it pains me to say, dinosaur kale. Cavolo nero has great depth and complexity of flavor when compared to our usual curly kale. If you cannot find cavolo nero, use whatever you can find at your farmers market. I have used curly kale, Red Russian kale, and Brazilian couve. 

Cooking the Soffritto and Tomato Paste

Next comes the cooking of the soffritto. In a large pot, heat enough olive oil to cover the bottom, then add the soffritto vegetables along with a sprig of rosemary and a pinch of red pepper flakes. Once the onions start to go translucent, add several cloves of minced garlic (to your liking) to the mix and stir well. Clear a spot in the middle of the pan and add a tablespoon or two of tomato paste to the bare pan, spread it out a bit, and let it sit until it starts to caramelize and brown. Stir the tomato paste in well.

Tomato Paste: Brand and Pack Do Not Matter

Before I get back to the process: a word on tomato paste. I like Italian doppio concentrato (double concentrated) tomato paste in a tube and not because it is Italian and somewhat expensive. I buy it for convenience. I can squeeze out the small amount that I require for any given dish and put the remainder back in the refrigerator, unconcerned about spoilage. I gave up on cans of tomato paste decades ago. No matter how small they are, they always contain more tomato paste than I can use at one time and I don't want to fool around repackaging tomato paste.

It turns out that American tomato paste comes in cans and Italian tomato paste mainly in tubes. This is because of differences in packaging lines. We're set up for cans here in the States, whereas in Italy, they're set up for tubes. The different production lines have differing processing temperatures, higher here and lower there, so Italian paste is brighter red and fresher tasting whereas American paste is deeper colored and more cooked in flavor. Because the first step in using tomato paste is to caramelize it on the bottom of the pan, processing temperature makes no difference in the outcome of the final dish.

I have tried a lot of tomato paste brands and they're all just fine. Relative to American tomato paste, Italian paste is a lot more expensive (up to four times) but still, a tube is inexpensive to buy. If you want the convenience of a tube, buy an Italian brand. If that doesn't matter to you, buy the least expensive American brand.

Kale and White Wine Added

If you have caramelized the tomato paste well, some of it will be stuck to the bottom of the pan. To aid in getting all the brown bits off the bottom of the pan, add a glass or two of dry white wine, and scrape the bottom of the pan vigorously. Let the mixture cook for a couple of minutes to evaporate some of the alcohol. Then add the kale and wilt it a bit.

White Beans and Chicken Stock Added

Finally, add cooked white beans. This is about four pounds, a single pound of beans rehydrated and cooked. Then add chicken or vegetable to just below the surface of the beans and cook over a moderate flame until the consistency is what you want. I like a bit of liquid in my beans, but I am not aiming for it to be soupy.

Kale with White Beans

I have already walked through the process above. Here are the ingredients for a large pot of kale and white beans that will serve four people generously.

2 carrots, diced

1 large leek or one large onion, diced

1 stalk of celery, diced

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 sprig of rosemary

1 pinch red pepper flakes

1-2 tablespoons of tomato paste

1 bunch cavolo nero (about a dozen leaves), chopped

4-8 ounces of dry white wine

3-1/2 to 4 pounds of cooked cannellini

1 quart of chicken or vegetable stock (or water in a pinch)

salt to taste

Quantities of everything are adjustable to your liking or to what you have on hand. As you read earlier, I had shallot and zucchini in my last batch.

And it should go without saying that this stew is better the second day, so make it a day ahead if you have that luxury.

If I were having company over, I would garnish each bowl with a drizzle of olive oil, a bit of grated pecorino, and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes.