Messe of African Greens
Messe of African Greens is a modern African Fusion recipe for a classic dish of mixed African greens cooked in a coconut milk, garlic, onion and chilli base flavoured with garam masala. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic African Fusion version of: Messe of African Greens.
prep time
20 minutes
cook time
35 minutes
Total Time:
55 minutes
Serves:
6
Rating: 
Tags : Chilli RecipesVegetarian RecipesSpice RecipesFusion RecipesAfrican-fusion Recipes
I was looking for something to serve with my Christmas turkey here in South Africa. I love greens of all kinds and decided to raid my garden. I ended up with taro leaves, squash leaves and Swiss chard. I wanted to cook them together so I took the basic concept of the traditional British dish,
A Messe of Greens but gave it an African twist.
Ingredients:
2 bunches of Swiss chard
1 bunch of squash or pumpkin leaves
1 large bunch of taro (cocoyam) leaves
1 curry flavour stock cube
300ml coconut milk
1/2 onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
4 red finger chillies, minced (or to taste)
2 tbsp peanut butter
1 tbsp garam masala
salt and freshly-ground black pepper, to taste
Method:
Begin by preparing the greens. Wash all the greens thoroughly (but separately) and cut off any tough stems from the pumpkin leaves. Strip the chard leaves away from the midribs (chop and reserve the midribs for another recipe) then shred the leaves finely.
Strip the taro leaves away from the midribs (discard the midribs). Wash the greens again then roll into a tube and using a sharp knife shred as finely as you can. Turn the chopping block the other way and shred the leaves parallel to the way your originally cut them so that you have very small pieces. Place the taro leaves in a pot, cover with water, season with salt and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, cover and cook for 8 minutes.
After 8 minutes, add the shredded chard leaves and cook for 3 minutes more, or until the chard leaves are just tender. Drain the leaves in a fine-meshed sieve and press down to extract as much of the excess liquid as possible.
Shred the pumpkin leaves finely and mix with the other greens. Add 1 tbsp oil to a pot and use to briefly fry the onion, garlic and chilli. Pour in 100ml oil and crumble in the stock cube. Scatter over the garam masala, bring to a boil and stir in all the greens. Reduce to a simmer, then stir in the coconut milk. When the mixture is hot, stir in the peanut butter.
Cook for about 20 minutes, or until the sauce thickens. Adjust the seasonings to taste and serve hot.
