The English class system is like a co*ckroach. Ugly, cunning and extraordinarily resilient, it creeps into the most unlikely places.
About a year ago, for instance, the brilliant blogger, anti-poverty campaigner and Guardian food writer Jack Monroe was attacked by a right-wing columnist for publishing a recipe for kale pasta pesto. His argument was that it was ludicrous to expect “ordinary people” to cook such a middle-class dish. The working classes, he declared with bracing certainty, “have never eaten kale”, and only eat “spaghetti out of tins”.
To be fair to the swivel-eyed lunatic, he’s not the first to observe a correlation between class and eating habits. When the kale pesto row was first rumbling in the media, I wondered out loud in front of some foodie friends: “What the hell is a middle-class vegetable?”
“Avocado,” replied one. “That’s a middle class vegetable.”
“Oh no,” countered another. “Avocado is definitely lower-middle class these days.”
O Hades, open the ground beneath my feet and swallow me up. Can we not even eat our tea without a side order of snobbery?
If anything, kale should be a working-class hero. Once grown chiefly as cow fodder, it has pulled itself up by the bootstraps to become a super-fashionable superfood. And it’s still cheap as chips. Cheaper, come to think of it.
Food is – or should be – the great unifier. We all need to eat. The idea that some people are simply too troglodyte to appreciate a particular vegetable (or, just as damaging, the inverted snobbery that says some foods are “not for the likes of us”) is infuriating.
Rise up and resist the food hierarchy. Cook one of these kale recipes – suitable for humans from all backgrounds.
Braised kale
My friend Claire Ptak first introduced me to a version of this recipe (made with black kale, or cavolo nero) that she had learned during her time at Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse restaurant in California. It is good as a side, as a light supper with beans, but best, I think as a pasta sauce.
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Serves 4-6
400g curly kale (or black kale/cavolo nero)
2 tbsp olive oil
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
½ tsp dried chilli flakes
4 anchovy fillets (optional)
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and black pepper
1 Prepare the kale by stripping the leaves from the tough stalk. Discard the stalks and wash the leaves well. Place in a colander to drain.
2 Blanch the kale in lots of boiling salted water for about 3 minutes or until the leaves are tender. Drain and refresh under cold water. Squeeze out any excess moisture from the kale and chop roughly.
3 In a large, shallow pan, heat the olive oil and cook the garlic and chilli over a medium heat for 2 minutes without colouring the garlic. Remove the pan from the heat and add the anchovy fillets, stirring quickly until the fillets “dissolve” into the oil.
4 Return the pan to the heat and add the chopped kale, season well and mix thoroughly in the garlic oil. Cook gently for a further 5 minutes until the kale is warmed through and flavoursome (at Chez Panisse they would go on cooking it slowly for another 20 minutes to intensify the flavours). Drizzle with some good-quality oil before serving. Squeeze in some lemon juice if you like a little sharpness.
5 Serve as a side dish or as a pasta sauce with dried pasta. It would work particularly well tossed with 400g cooked orecchiette and a good sprinkling of parmesan.
Recipe by Jane Baxter
What else you can do with kale
For a richer pasta sauce, perfect for tagliatelle, follow the method above. Then, when the kale has been braised for a few minutes in the chilli and garlic oil, add 200ml double cream. Simmer the kale in the cream for 2 minutes until it coats the chopped greens. Blitz half the kale mix in a blender and return to the pan. Mix well and season. This can also be used to top grilled polenta.
Add cannellini beans to the braised kale for a simple supper.
Kale and peanut salad
At Leon, one of our most popular salads is made with raw kale. It sounds like one for the sandal-wearers in principle, but it is wonderful. It actually feels almost decadent at the same time as being healthy. I forced my wife to try it – she is instinctively repulsed by any dish that sounds as if it might have been invented within 10 miles of Totnes – and she adores it.
Use curly kale. Tear out the stalks and shred the leaves finely. Dress generously. Sprinkle over finely chopped fresh mint, fresh coriander and some crushed, unsalted, roasted peanuts.
For the dressing, whisk together the following. Make plenty as it will keep for weeks in the fridge.
2 tbsp sunflower oil
25ml rice vinegar
Juice of ½ lemon
2 tsp honey
A pinch of English mustard powder
1 tbsp tamari (gluten-free soy sauce – but regular soy sauce is fine)
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 garlic clove, crushed
Kale crisps
Think of that fried cabbage that passes for seaweed in Chinese restaurants, and you may be more tempted by these if you’ve not tried them before.
200g kale
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt
Lemon juice
1 Heat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Wash the kale well and strip the leaves from the central stems. Dry the leaves between tea towels or using a salad spinner. Toss the kale in the olive oil and place on a baking tray.
2 Roast in the oven for about 15 minutes, until crisp. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with salt and a squeeze of lemon.
Jack Monroe’s kale pesto
The kale pesto will keep in the fridge for up to 1 week. Alternatively, freeze it in ice-cube trays – no need for any oil on top. You can serve it on spaghetti, with a pinch of extra chilli, or spread some on toast, top it with cheese and grill it.
Makes 14 portions
200g kale
1 fresh chilli
80g hard, strong cheese
150ml oil, sunflower or groundnut, plus extra for sealing
150ml water
30ml lemon juice
1 Cut any tough stalks out of the kale. Slice the chilli. Grate the cheese. Stuff as much kale as you can fit into a blender (you can add more later). Throw in the rest of the ingredients, then blend until the kale has turned into a vivid green pulp. Turn the blender off. Add any remaining kale, and blend again.
2 Spoon the pesto into a clean jar, pour a little extra oil over the top to seal, and put on the lid.
You can find this recipe in full in Jack Monroe’s first book, A Girl Called Jack, available now for £9.99 (RRP £12.99) at bookshop.theguardian.com
Henry Dimbleby is co-founder of the natural fast-food restaurant chain Leon (@henry_leon)
