Kale and cabbage gratin! Gluten-free!

I hadn't made very much new or interesting food in a while. I've been eating things like baked chicken legs, and roasted sweet potatoes, and rice pudding. All are wonderful, and have become comforts foods in lieu of Honey Nut Cheerios, or Vienna Fingers, or Chips Ahoy, but they've been starting to get a little boring. I came across a recipe in the NYT the other day though, for a kale and cabbage gratin, and was intrigued. Gratins are one of those dishes that I feel are always being bruited about in my Food & Wine, but I've never quite had a handle on what one was, save that it involved cheese. As the culinary fates would have it, I had just picked up a bag of kale at the farmer's market on Saturday (another plug for Atherton Mill and Market!!) and I had half a head of cabbage left over in the fridge.

So, a gratin it was! The NYT recipe calls for breadcrumbs, which I can't eat right now, and for fresh sage, which I don't have. I thought I'd be safe with thyme (really, who's allergic to thyme) but substituted the dry stuff. And since I hadn't re-tested garlic, I took this as an opportunity to do so. Left out the onion, since I didn't have one, and used cheddar cheese, since I DO have that. Without the breadcrumbs, it's gluten-free. Booyah.

Simplified ingredients looked like this (plus olive oil):
Kale, cabbage, cheddar, 2 eggs, a few cloves of garlic, short-grain (I use arborio) rice, salt, pepper and thyme.

Here's how you make it...

Cook 1/2 to 1/3 cup of arborio rice. I dumped some in the pan, so I don't really know how much I used.

While the rice cooks, saute a few cloves of garlic, sliced, in the olive oil. De-stem the kale (you can just rip the fluffy leaves off the stem - it's not a big pain like de-stemming collards). Add a bunch of kale (I used a fluffy colander-full) and thinly sliced cabbage (I used about 1/3 of a small head) to the pan with the garlic. Let it wilt a little, adding a scant 1/2 cup of water once it's gotten brighter in color and slightly wilty. Let it simmer in the water until the water evaporates...the leaves should be bright green, and pliable/droopy but still firm. Add salt, pepper, and thyme to taste.

Grate the cheese!!!

Beat the two eggs in a bowl.

(I made everything in the skillet, but you can mix it in a bowl and then dump it in a casserole if you wanted.)

Turn the heat off the greens once they're done (droopy, still slightly firm and bright green - not soggy). Stir in the cooked rice. Stir in the cheese. Stir in the eggs last, so they don't cook when they hit the rest of the ingredients (mixing in the cold cheese and cooled-down rice first cools the whole thing down). Taste the mixture and add more salt or pepper if you want.

Bake the whole kit and kaboodle at 375 for 30-40 minutes, or just until the edges turn brown and crispy and the top is firm.


Tada!! I ate two-thirds of the pan.