Traditionally, collard greens require two things the modern home cook seems to find in short supply: time and a ham hock. This is unfortunate for a number of reasons, chief among them being that collard greens are awesome and should be enjoyed regularly, even by those of us short on time and pork shank.

Here you may be tempted to ask what a collard green is, anyway. In the States, we associate them with southern cooking and southern chefs take no small amount of pride in their greens. Truth is, collards, a kind of cabbage, have been around since ancient times, first cultivated along the Mediterranean. The hearty stalks were easily transplanted all across Europe and beyond. The traditional southern preparation, slow cooked with bits of pork, traces back to African slaves, who were often made to do with leftovers of the tough greens and unused pig parts.

I’ve seen recipes that call for cooking collards for up to three hours, which strikes me as out of reach for all but the most dedicated cook. Fortunately, it’s easy to cut this long cook time by stripping out the tough center stalk. As for the ham hock, I suppose we’ll have to make do with bacon. For four servings, you’ll want about half a pound of very thick cut bacon¹, a large bunch of greens (two pounds or so), two tablespoons of kosher salt, a tablespoon of red pepper flakes and a clove of garlic (or two!) peeled and smashed.

Set a large pot or enamel dutch oven² over medium low heat. Cut the bacon crosswise so that they’re roughly the same width as they are thick (the French call these lardon) and add them to pot. Let them cook slowly for about 10 minutes to render the fat but keep watch so they don’t burn. If you’re a vegetarian or vegan, feel free to sub in a few tablespoons of butter or vegetable oil, which obviously won’t require the time to render, just heat up.

While the bacon is rendering its fat, prep the leathery collard leaves. Rinse them well to get rid of any lingering soil. Stack two or three on top of each other, point the back end towards the top of your cutting board and slice the leaves on either side of the stalk. Then, stack the two sets of leaves on top of one another, roll them up and slice them about an inch or two thick. This will give them enough substance to keep together but still be manageable when served.

With the fat rendered, add the greens to the pot and stir them around to coat in as much bacon fat as possible; be careful here, any water on the greens will spatter in the bacon fat. Let the greens cook dry for thirty seconds or so, until the leaves are bright green, then add enough cold water to just cover the greens. Set the heat to about medium, and loosely cover until it starts to simmer. Add the salt, red pepper and garlic, stir, and let simmer for half an hour, up to an hour, depending on the consistency you want. I prefer my greens well cooked but not falling apart. This is an excellent accompaniment to roast chicken and goes great right on top of a heap of rice, which soaks up some of that delicious liquid.

And what of that liquid gold! Don’t you dare throw it out when it comes time to clean the kitchen, it’s amazing stuff. Down south, we call it potlikker³ and it makes an excellent base for stews and soups, poured right over rice or grits or sopped up directly with corn bread. Any of the nutrients released by the vitamin-rich collards are still in the stock, not to mention the smokey goodness of the bacon. Strain it through a sieve or colander, toss the boiled bacon and spices, store it in the fridge then skim off any fat that congeals once it cools. Potlikker, like all stocks, freezes remarkably well.

I’d say even on a busy night, you could roast a chicken and prep some collards, neither of which require much real work, in just about an hour.

Like, I suspect, a number of foodish types, I’ve tended to be a bit dismissive of food allergies. I’d hear reports of school-wide peanut butter bans and unapologetic parents canceling play dates because there was milk in the house and roll my eyes. I’ve been tempering this attitude, though, as I discover that a number of my friends and people I care about bring their own food allergies to the table, often without me even knowing it.

My buddy Ross, one of the most badass guys I know, takes a lactase pill before we go out for pizza so the cheese doesn’t bring about the extreme discomfort of lactose intolerance. My friend Briana has a much more severe anaphylactic reaction to dairy, where even a soy latte that’s been prepped with a spoon that previously touched cream sends her to the emergency room.

And then there are my friends John and Amy Jane, whose boy Jonas is one of the most awesome six-year-olds you’ll ever meet. The kid loves superheroes and will fight you in a duel to the death in imagined gunfights, provided you’re willing to run through the muggy streets of Philadelphia to do it. He’s got a quick wit, as you’d expect if you know his folks, and a fearless attitude. The only thing that keeps him from being an otherwise normal kid, and what keeps his parents a little more on edge than most, is his severe dairy allergy. Amy Jane is raising money for the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network and wrote a funny and moving piece about her son. Even if you can’t contribute to her goal, I hope you’ll give it a read.

Food allergies are a bit mysterious. They are often caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors that lead to the body rejecting, sometimes violently, the very things we put in to nourish it. They can be caused by the introduction of new foods at a very young age — milk, eggs and nuts before the age of one can lead to allergic reactions. Sometimes they linger for life, sometimes they disappear after childhood, sometimes they show up in adults.

They can be caused by the crapshoot of genetics and how well you picked your ancient ancestors. The ability to produce lactase, the enzyme that breaks down the lactose sugar found in milk, is actually the exception, not the rule, in human adults. Scandinavians and most northern Europeans do ok with dairy, but those numbers drop as you go south; people of African descent are more than twice as likely to be lactose intolerant than tolerant. ¹

We seem to hear a lot more about food allergies these days than ever before and that, too, is mysterious. It may be that we’re better at spotting them, it may be that we as a species haven’t caught up to globalization, it may be that there’s something about our modern approach to diet and food production that is causing a noticeable uptick in food-related allergies. Like other modern afflictions, though, food allergies suffer from a lack of understanding and awareness. I hope you’ll consider supporting my friend Amy Jane as she tries to raise a little money but more importantly awareness about her awesome son and his decidedly unawesome allergies.

I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I make pretty decent pie dough; not because it impugns my manhood but because from-scratch pie crusts, especially flaky pie crusts, are supposed to be difficult. You’ve probably heard about tricks like using vodka or other such sorcery but I’ve always had luck with just the basics. I really wish I had a trick of my own to impart.

Before we get started, let’s consider briefly just what pie dough is. Like its cousin the biscuit, pie dough is a means to suspend fat in flour, the primary difference being that a pie dough uses much less liquid. The type of fat can vary depending on the type of pie. I prefer crusts made with just butter, not lard or shortening ¹. Also like the biscuit, the fat is cut into the flour, usually using a pastry cutter (I prefer blades to wires on my pastry cutters as they are sturdy enough to stand up to well-chilled butter) so that larger pieces of butter will help ensure a flaky crust. A little salt and some cold water are all you need to round out the recipe.

One word about butter — get the good stuff. I like a full fat, European-style butter like Plugra for my pie dough. As with all baking, use unsalted butter and add the right amount of salt on your own.

Most pies call for two crusts and it’s easy enough to make two at once. I use Michael Ruhlman’s 3-2-1 ratio of three parts flour, two parts fat (butter) and one part liquid (ice water) for it’s simplicity. This works out to 12 ounces of all purpose flour weighed out (about 2 1/2 cups if you don’t have a scale), 8 ounces of butter (two sticks or one bullion of Plugra exactly, as luck would have it) and 4 ounces (a few tablespoons) of ice water.

My one piece of advice when you are ready to prepare: stay cool, and I mean this literally and figuratively. Butter has a pretty low melt point; it will start to pool on a warm enough day, not to mention in a hot kitchen. You want the butter to remain solid until bake time, otherwise the melted butter will mix with the flour and your pie crust will be more mealy than flaky ². It’s important to work quickly but not frantically.

Cut the butter into about half inch cubes then chill it in the freezer for 15 minutes or so. Measure out the flour, add half a teaspoon of salt, stir twice, then chill in the fridge along with your pastry cutter. This sounds obsessive, I realize, but it really does help.

When everything is chilled, work the butter into the flour with a pastry cutter until the pieces are roughly pea-sized. You’ll probably need to use a knife to scrape the butter from between the blades of the pastry cutter.

Add ice water by the tablespoon until the dough just comes together. Water in this recipe really is the biggest unknown because the amount of water you need will vary depending on the flour you’re using and, yes, even how humid it is on any particular day. Err on the side of less water, just make sure it’s ice cold.

Dump the dough, likely still crumbs, on a floured surface and quickly knead by hand for 30 seconds or less to bring it all together. At this point, the dough should be cool to the touch and you want to work quickly to keep the heat of your hands from melting the butter. Three or four good kneads should be sufficient. If it won’t stay together, dump the crumbs back in the bowl, add a little more water then try again.

Divide the dough in half and shape into discs that are about half an inch thick. Wrap each disc in plastic and refrigerate for at least half an hour or up to a day. The refrigeration gives the butter a chance to cool and solidify, and the time allows the water to evenly distribute in the dough.

When it comes time to make a pie, remember to keep temperature in mind. Were your dough discs in the fridge overnight? They may need to sit on the counter for a few minutes before rolling them out so that they’re not too hard. Is it a hot day in a hot kitchen? Roll each disc quickly and then wrap in plastic and store in the fridge while assembling the rest of the pie.

Now that you’ve made your own pie crust, making the pie should be, well, easy.

1. If I’m making a savory pie, like one filled with meat, I’ll sub about 1/3 of the butter with lard or, best yet, duck fat. ↩

2. Unlike, say, mealy apples, mealy crust isn’t necessarily a bad thing and is delicious in its own right. The difference is really one of texture. ↩

At the store this weekend, I counted no fewer than a dozen different varieties of pre-packaged pancake mixes. And this was a fancy, highfalutin store that doesn’t even bother to stock the aerosol or otherwise weaponized shake-and-pour varieties. What’s the lesson here? That pancakes are hard; here, gentle consumers who are far too busy to bother making from scratch, just add water.

Pancakes are not hard. As long as you have the right ingredients on hand, making them from scratch requires no more effort than measuring from a box.

The basics are these: flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, milk, eggs, butter. You should be stocking your larder with these already and if you don’t have these basics on hand, pick them up next time you hit the store. The batter is pretty much equal parts wet and dry, which you’ll want to mix separately and then combine until the batter just comes together. The biggest mistake novice pancake makers make is to over-mix the batter. Two final tips: let the batter rest for at least five minutes before spooning it out, and let your griddle cool a little between batches.

Here’s a recipe for pancakes for two people. It’s easy to double, triple or quadruple depending on your needs.

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 three finger pinch salt
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 3/4 - 1 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
• Some more butter for the pan

Set your oven to its lowest temperature so you have somewhere to store your finished cakes while making the rest. No one likes cold pancakes.

Melt the butter (30 seconds on a medium setting in the microwave is about right) and let it start to cool. Combine the dry ingredients in a good sized bowl and stir a few times to distribute. In a separate bowl, beat the egg into the milk with a fork, then add the melted butter. Start with a little less milk; you can always add more if the batter is too thick.

By mixing the wet and dry ingredients separately, you make sure that the wet ingredients are mixed properly without overworking the batter. Now, combine the wet ingredients with the dry and mix until the batter just comes together — don’t over mix, it’s ok if the batter is still lumpy.

While the batter is resting, heat your griddle on medium heat. I like to use a flat griddle for pancakes instead of a pan with sides, it’s easier to get to them with a spatula. Cast iron is a fine, economical choice, and one that spans two burners on your stove will keep a big crowd happy.

Add a fair amount of butter to the griddle, which will add to the flavor and keep the cakes from sticking. When the butter is foaming, ladle some batter onto the griddle, usually between a third and half a cup’s worth. Try to make them all about the same size so that they cook at the same time. In about two to three minutes, you should start to see bubbles forming on the top. A minute more and those bubbles will pop, meaning it’s time to flip. Don’t get fancy, just flip them with a spatula and let them cook another two to three minutes. Stack them on a cookie sheet and store in the warm oven while you cook the rest.

Wipe out any butter between rounds with a paper towel to avoid cooking in burned butter and let the pan cool down for a minute before the next batch.

Pancake batter is wonderful because it’s so variable. You can replace half the flour with whole wheat flour or other grains like cooked cornmeal or whole oats. You can stir in a little spice like cinnamon or add fresh blueberries or thinly sliced bananas once you ladle the batter but before you flip the cakes. Try separating the egg(s), beat the yolks as usual then whip the whites with a handmixer and fold them into the combined batter. Zest some lemon or orange peel into the batter to brighten it up. You can even add chocolate chips if you’re feeling indulgent.

You know what to serve this with already — warm maple syrup, melted butter, three slices of thick bacon or sausage links, some fresh fruit and cold orange juice.

Memorial Day kicked off the unofficial start of grilling season here in the US of A, which no doubt means many of you are going to be pattying up some hamburgers over the next few months. A good burger is a thing to take pride in and a little extra attention will help get it just right.

(photo courtesy of SeoulBrother)

Start with the meat. We usually experience ground beef encased in styrofoam and cellophane wrapping, which introduces a whole host of problems. Unless the cut is specified (usually “ground chuck”), this beef comes from the trimmings of other cuts and is bound to be inconsistent. Pre-wrapped beef is labeled as “lean” or “extra lean”, meaning a fat content of around 9-12%, but a good burger should be more in the 15-20% fat range.

More worrisome than a dry burger, though, is the rare though very serious concern about e. coli. This nasty bug is a common cause of food poisoning and made more prevalent by mass-produced meat ground up who-knows-where. E. coli is a bacteria that lives on the surface of meat, and since grinding steak trimmings into burger increases the amount of surface area exponentially, it makes sense to make sure your meat is ground safely and not before being loaded into a truck and driven all over creation.

The easiest way to do that is to ask your butcher to grind it for you, which they’re usually happy to do. But what kind of meat should you grind? Traditionally, chuck roast makes good hamburger with the right balance of meat and fat and a flavor you’ll recognize. If you want a meatier burger, go for a steak like a sirloin, though it’ll be a little less fatty and therefore drier.

I’ve been experimenting with a mixed approach, combining about 50% chuck with 25% brisket and short rib for a rich, meaty burger (I stole the mixed meat idea from New York butcher Pat LaFrieda, who sells bespoke burger mixes to places like the storied Shake Shack). Traditionalists will insist on beef burgers, but lamb, pork, turkey and even duck are fantastic ground and grilled — the Lunchbox Laboratory here in Seattle sells duck/pork burger called The Dork that calls to my nerdy heart.

If you’re feeling particularly DIY, there’s nothing stopping you from grinding the meat yourself. Don’t have a meat grinder? A food processor will work just fine if you cut your meat into 1-inch cubes and pulse instead of letting it run full tilt. A few one-second pulses should be plenty; you’re not making pâté. The result will be different than what you’re used to - more chopped than ground - but it will patty up just fine and no one will know the difference once they take a bite.

I like to season mine with nothing more than kosher salt and pepper, and I like to do it before I form the patties. I usually sprinkle enough salt to dust the top, add a few fine grinds of pepper, then mix gently with my hands and repeat one more time. You are more than welcome to add any variety of seasonings, such as ketchup and mustard, an egg, chili powder, fresh herbs, onions, or worcestershire sauce, though too much and your burger starts to resemble meat loaf. When I’m using good quality meat, freshly ground, I like to let it stand on its own.

Then there’s the pattying. It’s important to try to make sure each burger is about the same size so that they’ll all cook equally. Six ounces per burger is usually perfect, though eight ounces is a little easier to measure out by sight — two burgers for every pound of meat. (A scale is really handy here.) Once the meat’s measured, it’s important not to work it too much and certainly don’t press it into something resembling a pancake or one of those frozen pucks that fast food joints use. The meat should just hold together with the final patty about 3/4 of an inch thick.

Here’s a trick that will make you the star of the grill — put a dimple in the middle of your patty. Just press your thumb about a quarter of the way into the top of your burgers and reshape as necessary. This will keep your burgers from ending up like little UFOs as they cook ¹.

Medium high heat is just about perfect for burgers — for charcoal, start the coals in a chimney, let them burn until they’re dusted in gray ash, then spread an even layer in your grill. You should be able to hold your hand over the grill for 2-3 seconds. Let the burgers cook for 3-4 minutes, then flip and cook for another 4-5 minutes for medium rare. I find that only flipping once reduces the number of flare ups and keeps the burgers moist and flavorful. Whatever you do, do not press down on the burger with your spatula.

If you like cheese on your burger (who doesn’t?) add it in the last 30 seconds so it just melts. If you can keep your swarming guests at bay, let the burgers rest for a few minutes before digging in. Toast the rolls right on the grill for 30 seconds to keep them from turning to mush.

Condiments are up to you. Here again, I prefer to keep it simple — a thick slice of red onion that’s been grilled for a few minutes to cut back the bite, heirloom tomatoes when in season, crisp butter lettuce or fresh-from-the-window-box arugula for a little more spice, crunchy pickles and a smear of dijon. I’m told some even add ketchup or bottled barbecue sauce but you’re no doubt above such philistinism. You know what to drink with this: a cold beer, preferably from a cooler, fetched by someone who appreciates how much smoke your eyes have endured.

Neven’s Notes:

Jim’s advice is right on the money here. Regarding that thing where people press the burger into the grill - you’ve seen this in movies, now please unsee it. Pressing will merely dry out your burger and make it likelier to stick; it certainly won’t make it cook any faster. Putting down the grill cover will do that. If your grill has a built-in thermometer, you can check this - opening it constantly is the fastest way to lose heat (which, I should add, is not always a bad thing.)

As for the bun, the traditional view is that the perfect hamburger bun stays fluffy until the moment you press it with your fingers, at which point it should deflate into an easily mouthable flat with all the flavor of its formerly tall self. Supermarket buns usually aren’t great, but their spongy softness is a desirable feature. If your particular burger fits a ciabatta roll, go for it; I’m just saying the soft, moist kind of burger Jim writes about will do best on something fluffy and compressive. If you can find a brioche bun, give it a try - everything’s better with more egg and butter.

The New York Times has a fascinating page one story today about salt. It’s an interesting piece of reporting about the effect of salt on food, particularly processed food, and how the food industry has not just embraced but become addicted to salt over the decades. It’s also a peek into how the government regulates the food we eat and the tension between scientific research, the food industry, government and your average grocery shopper.

I always worry when I read stories likes this one, though, because I fear that the lesson learned at the end isn’t “eat fewer processed foods” but “salt is bad”. And since my email and twitter have already filled with questions about this latest salvo against salt, here’s my bit.

First, you need salt to live, just like you need fat, so completely getting rid of it, even if you could, is a bad idea. Second, the vast majority of salt consumed, particularly in Western diets, comes from processed foods, not from properly seasoning your food while you’re cooking — the NYT article claims processed and restaurant foods account for 80% of Americans’ salt intake.

The human palate is highly attuned to detect salt, which, along with finicky consumers, makes it difficult for processed food manufacturers like Kraft and Kellogg to significantly reduce salt without driving their customers away. Add to the fact that salt is a much cheaper additive than, say, fresh herbs, and it’s easy to understand why the food industry is reluctant to stop over-salting the food they process for us.

Which leads to an obvious recommendation: eat fewer processed foods, cook more, use fresh ingredients but don’t be afraid to properly season your food with salt. It’s obvious, though not necessarily easy, and it’s something we hope to help with.