#FastFoodFriday Greens With Soft Boiled Eggs
If you're not from the South, or from the United States, you don't use the word "greens." I used to live in Australia. My family and I had migrated there from Greece when I was about eight years old. None of my Australian-born friends knew about greens. They knew spinach, they may have known chard, but that was about it. So they teased me by saying that I was eating weeds! And I was. It's funny now; it wasn't then.
The Greek Heritage kitchen that I grew up in was heavy on greens during spring and summer. On the weekends after church, we would pile into our car and go looking for "weeds," or horta as we call them in Greek, growing on the sides of country roads. Dandelion, chickory, amaranth...I don't remember them all. This hunting for greens on country roads is a skill that's developed when people are paying attention--my sister, Antonia, and I were not paying attention. We were embarrassed. Now I wish I'd studied the foraging of my experienced parents. The well-traveled and experienced Diane Kochilas has a glossary of Greek wild greens that may prove useful to you, assuming that you want to forage for greens in Greece. It's quite interesting, especially as we find many of these in the South growing on vacant lots near our houses.
But I digress. Today I'm sharing a recipe with so few ingredients that you'll have it memorized before you sit down to dinner. Once again, the star of this platter of veggie goodness is produce from Golden Forest Farm. I love chard. This is baby rainbow Swiss chard. In my first go at this I used one bag of the baby chard; next time I'm using two bags. More greens! (Make sure you say that in your best Cookie Monster voice.)
Ingredients
4 eggs, soft-boiled (I'll explain below)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup chopped sweet onion
pinch of salt
2 bags (10 ounces) baby rainbow Swiss chard *
1 teaspoon chopped fresh mint
2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar and more extra-virgin olive oil for dressing
*Use the equivalent of "adult" Swiss chard. One bunch with leaves stripped and cut into smaller pieces or ribbons. The greens should amount to around 8 cups of leaves.
Cooking and Assembly
The Greek Heritage kitchen that I grew up in was heavy on greens during spring and summer. On the weekends after church, we would pile into our car and go looking for "weeds," or horta as we call them in Greek, growing on the sides of country roads. Dandelion, chickory, amaranth...I don't remember them all. This hunting for greens on country roads is a skill that's developed when people are paying attention--my sister, Antonia, and I were not paying attention. We were embarrassed. Now I wish I'd studied the foraging of my experienced parents. The well-traveled and experienced Diane Kochilas has a glossary of Greek wild greens that may prove useful to you, assuming that you want to forage for greens in Greece. It's quite interesting, especially as we find many of these in the South growing on vacant lots near our houses.
But I digress. Today I'm sharing a recipe with so few ingredients that you'll have it memorized before you sit down to dinner. Once again, the star of this platter of veggie goodness is produce from Golden Forest Farm. I love chard. This is baby rainbow Swiss chard. In my first go at this I used one bag of the baby chard; next time I'm using two bags. More greens! (Make sure you say that in your best Cookie Monster voice.)
Ingredients
4 eggs, soft-boiled (I'll explain below)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup chopped sweet onion
pinch of salt
2 bags (10 ounces) baby rainbow Swiss chard *
1 teaspoon chopped fresh mint
2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar and more extra-virgin olive oil for dressing
*Use the equivalent of "adult" Swiss chard. One bunch with leaves stripped and cut into smaller pieces or ribbons. The greens should amount to around 8 cups of leaves.
Cooking and Assembly
- Pour two tablespoons of olive oil into a hot pan and stir in the onion and salt. Cook until the onion has softened.
- Add the chard to the pan and toss with tongs to mix up the onion and greens. Make sure the heat is up all the way. All we're going to do is wilt the greens. Once that's accomplished, stir in the mint and transfer the greens to a nice platter.
- Cut the eggs in two and place over the greens. Sprinkle the eggs with another pinch or two of salt and a bit of freshly ground pepper.
- Distribute the vinegar directly onto the eggs and then drizzle everything with olive oil. Use your judgment here--if you enjoy the sharp, fresh flavor of vinegar, use more. If you prefer less olive oil, that's fine. Just make sure you get the vinegar on the egg yolks first--it will absorb all it wants and then allow the rest to slide onto the greens.
Boiling the Eggs
- Cold eggs into a pot of cold tap water. Eggs soft but not runny. Sometimes called jammy eggs.
- Once the water begins to bubble, set a timer for four minutes.
- When the timer goes off, drain the hot water into the sink and fill the pot with cold running water and ice. Work quickly to stop the cooking. If you hesitate, the eggs will continue to cook.
- For super soft-boiled eggs (runny yolk), set the timer to three minutes.
- Peel the eggs a.s.a.p.
- You can cook and peel the eggs the day or night before. Just remember to pull them out of the fridge about 15 minutes before you need them. (You don't want super-cold eggs over hot greens. Not appealing.) Cut in half and set aside.
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