Nobody really talks about them that much. The mac and cheese gets all the love and oftentimes they're not that good even when you eat them out at restaurants and things like that. Today though if you follow this recipe you're gonna change the game.
Everyone's gonna be asking you to make them for the holiday season. Meet me in the kitchen let's make it happen. That's damn good. Alright guys, so if you've never made collard greens, I'm going to let you know a few of the techniques or tips that's going to make sure that you execute this properly for Thanksgiving. First and foremost, you want to start with good quality collard greens.
That means bright, vibrant green in color. try to avoid anything that's like yellow or wilted it's going to taste a lot better if it's fresh next once you find some bright green collard greens that are nice and fresh the next step is to go ahead and clean them up that means remove all of the dirt and grit nasty stuff that you don't want to eat get them squeaky clean and then we're going to prepare them in a way that's going to remove all of the stems and things that don't get tender we also want to chop them into bite-sized pieces that's important because they're all going to cook at the same rate and get tender that way each fork full of collard greens is going to be enjoyable to eat because it's all tender you don't have bites that are not tender or under or overcooked everything's going to be uniform in size all right guys so once you have the quality collard greens they're cleaned and prepped the next most important thing is the braising liquid you want to to make sure it's extra flavorful and the way we're going to do that is we'll smoke turkey meat you can use pork meat if you want to today we're using drum or turkey leg and turkey neck i like this combination because you get extra meat from the turkey leg and in my opinion the turkey neck provides the most flavorful uh meat for the collard greens you get the best of both worlds you get volume and flavor we're going to add those in there first followed by two onions and one head of garlic this is a six and a half liter pot so make sure you have something that's going to be big enough to cook the collards greens that you are preparing for Thanksgiving. If you're making, you know, for a larger family, you want a large pot.
If it's just you and a few other people, you can have a smaller pot. I'm going to fill this up with water, bring this to a boil, and let it simmer until the meat falls off the bone. So the goal here people is to make sure you get this liquid as flavorful as humanly possible. So we're going to go ahead and bring this up to a boil.
I'm going to add in a little chicken bouillon powder, a little bit of my AP seasoning, just to get the party started with some kind of seasoning, some kind of flavor. A lot of this liquid is going to evaporate, so we don't want to, you know, flavor it up too much, but it's going to lose a lot of that. Once it gets concentrated, we'll shred the meat and then really season this up before we add the collard greens. all right guys now it's time to get down and dirty cooking in my opinion is a labor of love so you can take shortcuts and speed up the process but you're not going to get the same results you can buy the pre-bagged stuff that's already chopped up with all the stems in there and just unequal pieces of collard greens, that's not going to give you the same result as if you were to make it yourself.
So I got my little trash bowl here. I want to get the leaves off the stems. The stems in my opinion don't get quite as tender and they're a little bit more bitter than the leaves. So if you want the best results, I'll recommend following this method here where you just kind of Take the leaf over the stem.
You can use your hands and just peel it right off and Then we'll put them in a pile roll them up and put chop them into bite-sized pieces After that, we'll go ahead and clean them up Real simple a little bit more labor-intensive than just chopping them all up But I promise you they will result in a better pot of collard greens this way All right guys so we've reached the point where the meat is nice and tender just about falling off the bone we're to go ahead and remove it for a number of reasons most importantly the drumstick has pin bones that you don't want anybody to choke on so we're gonna go ahead and remove all of that out of our bra Shred the meat, add the meat back in, and then taste for seasoning. You want to make sure that this is as flavorful as humanly possible before you add those greens in there so the greens can start absorbing that flavor. And then you just simply simmer them until the greens are tender. tender and you season to taste simple as that this down here my friends is liquid gold you want to taste it and adjust it as needed get that meat back in there you got yourself the best collard greens you ever had all right folks we're approaching the home Home stretch, our greens are getting nice and tender, the meat's off the bone, the liquid is reduced enough, everything's tasting really good. Now's the time to add your finishing touches.
I'm going to add just a teaspoon of this roasted garlic, better than bouillon. I'm going to add a teaspoon or two. of apple cider vinegar.
That's one of those things that you can adjust to your personal preferences. You know, some people like a little bit more vinegar in their greens. I don't think that it needs much.
So we're gonna add just about a teaspoon or so. I'm gonna add a pinch of sugar as well, some red pepper flakes. and my AP seasoning and we're done.
If your greens are not you know bitter at all you don't have to add the sugar just something that I've kind of gotten in the habit of doing and again it's just a light pinch not to make them sweet but just kind of balance everything together. Little red pepper flakes, little hot sauce and we're done. Alright my friends, quick little shameless plug, this recipe and over a hundred others can be found in my brand new solo cookbook, Meet Me in the Kitchen. Packed with good recipes, everything from breakfast down to holiday meals, got everything that you could ever need to make you a better chef in the kitchen. Now without further ado it's time for my favorite part of the job.
We went ahead and plated this up. Brace yourself for a trademark money shot. Say it with me guys looking good. The only thing left to do is digging for the taste test but before we do that please take a quick second to subscribe to the channel.
Make sure you hit that bell to enable notifications as well. All right, but all right, folks, I found my fork. I'm getting a proper ratio of green to turkey meat. Give her a little dunk in the juice. Underrated right here.
Collard greens to me are kind of like the red-headed stepchild of the holiday season. It's going to taste a lot better if it's fresh. Next, once you find the right vibrant. Next, once you find some vibe.
I can't say vibrant to save my life. Next, to make you a better chef in the kitchen. Today, we're going to go ahead and get in. I'm about to kick the video off today.
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