Hi folks. Thought I’d share with you one of our favourite dishes to cook up using the Warrigal greens that we grow around the patch here. There will be more recipes to come but thought I’d start with one of our favourites.
We’ve found Warrigal greens make a fantastic year-round spinach replacement for us are very easy to grow. The greens are high in Vitamin A, C, B6 and also contain relatively high levels of calcium, iron and magnesium.
Like many greens, they do contain low levels of oxalic acid. Some health care professionals recommend that you blanch the greens for 1 minute to help remove the oxalic acid if you are consuming them in large quantities.
We eat small amounts of them raw in salads & blanch the greens when we intend to freeze them for long term storage.
We also find that they are easier to portion out for recipes when blanched so tend to process most this way
On to the meal…
This dish was a bit of a spare of the moment meal whipped up one night by Bianca. The greens were supposed to go into a Palak (Spinach Curry) but Bianca decided she would enjoy a pasta instead and so this meal was born. In this version we have used chicken and salami both of which could easily be removed to make a vegetarian version.
Warrigal Greens and Chicken Pasta
Ingredients
2-3 cups of blanched chopped Warrigal greens / spinach (we use a food processor to chop them finely)
2 medium chicken breasts diced
200g of sliced mushrooms (we like field or swiss browns for this dish)
40 mm / 1½” section of favourite salami quartered lengthwise and sliced finely
1 medium onion thinly sliced
3 large crushed garlic cloves
¼ cup white wine
½ cup of thickened / heavy cream
2tbsp of butter for frying (I add a dash of oil to stop it from burning)
4 serves of dried spaghetti
Olives and or chilli (for an extra bite) as garnish
Method
Heat water for spaghetti
In a hot pan, fry mushrooms, onion and salami in butter
Set aside in bowl once onion starts to caramelise
Add the spaghetti into boiling water to cook
Add chicken with the crushed garlic and wine to the fry pan
Check spaghetti ;)
Once chicken has started to brown add in mushroom, onion and salami along with the chopped greens then combine well in the pan
Add in the cream and mix thoroughly
Let the sauce cook on a low simmering heat stirring occasionally for 5 minutes
Drain pasta once cooked and serve into bowls If the pasta is ready before the rest of the meal you can mix through a small amount of oil to stop it from sticking together
Top pasta with spinach sauce then garnish with chillies and or olives.
You could make a Mushroom and Greens version by increasing the amount of chopped mushrooms added.
Another alternative we really enjoy is a Cheese and Greens dish by including some pan-fried haloumi fingers in the sauce. Hope this look at how we use Warrigal greens inspires you to have a crack at growing some yourself or another meal option for those that are already growing this tasty and nutritious perennial green.
Cheers all and happy cooking, Rob.