A Greener Shade of Kale

This week there was a bag of luscious deep green kale in our organic veg box. It came from Blaencamel Farm, just a few miles up the road in Cilcennin. I love this kind of green vegetable; iron-rich and deeply flavoured, man enough to stand up to any number of strong tastes.

Dinner tonight was courtesy of Queen Nigella; her Chicken with Chorizo & Cannellini Beans from Nigella Bites. I did make one alteration to her method; I cooked the chicken breasts in the oven (15-20 minutes at 200°c) rather than poaching them in stock. I also increased the quantities to serve all of us.

While the chicken is cooking, plunge 150g roughly torn-up kale into boiling water and cook for 5 minutes or so until tender. Heat a little olive oil in a deep frying pan and add 200g chorizo sausage, peeled of its papery 'wrapper' and cut into chunks. Sizzle this for a couple of minutes then add three 300g tins of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed. I added a little bit of the vegetable cooking water to lubricate it, then put the lid on the pan and let it bubble until the chicken and kale were ready. Pile the chorizo and bean mixture into a shallow dish, then top with some kale. Perch the chicken on top and sprinkle over some smoked paprika.