How to Turn Any Green, Bean & Pasta into Dinner | Off-Script with Sohla

i'm having a weird energy today we're gonna figure this out [Music] whoa huh am i being weird i feel like i'm being weird welcome back to sola goes off script so today i'm going to take this big pile of greens and we're going to go off script and what are we doing [Laughter] welcome back to sola goes oscar it feels so weird to say my name i just want to say welcome back to me going off script welcome back to solo goes off script and today i'm going to show you how to go off script with this whole big pile of greens we are going to braise them and wilt them down until they're super silky and tender and then it's going to coat some pasta there's going to be some beans in there it's going to be a nice hearty and warm way to have your greens once you get this formula down you can really do it with any greens and beans and things you have around before you grab your greens make sure to like and subscribe to see what other things i'm going to take off script good girl ah my finger [Music] the first thing we're gonna do is soak our pasta this is a really cool technique that i read about in ideas and food and we're gonna soak uh five ounces of pasta in one and a half cups of water and what happens is it the pasta swells and hydrates so that when we go to cook it it doesn't need nearly as much water or as much time to cook it's like really really really cool how it just like cooks up in like five minutes so it needs to soak for at least 15 but we're going to be doing a lot of other stuff so it'll have enough time to do that and then we can add our pasta to our cooked down greens and there's not going to be a whole lot of liquid in there but it's fine the liquid that's in here is enough to cook it up perfectly al dente and then the pasta is also going to make this liquid really nice and starchy so when we simmer it together it's going to make our whole dish super creamy so the cool thing about this is that because we're pre-soaking our pasta when it goes to cook all of the shapes cook at pretty much the same time so this is a great place if you have like a handful of this and a handful of that throw it all together into here i actually always leave a handful of pasta in the box and my husband hates it but i don't want a little bit too much i'd rather save it for later for this dish and i'm using chicken broth just because the pasta is going to really soak in all that flavor but you can use water if you've got if you're going to use water instead of stock or broth then i would add a big pinch of salt into the water and dissolve it so that we can season our pasta right away starting from the beginning [Music] so for the first dish i'm gonna do it's really inspired by southern collard greens that are cooked down with ham hocks and are really smoky silky and rich it's what probably one of my favorite sides so we're gonna start by rendering out some bacon to give us that similar smoky vibe that you get when you are cooking collard greens so here i have a few slices of bacon that i cut up into like half inch pieces going into the pot the pot's on medium heat and i'm going to add two tablespoons of water and that just helps the fat render out it just helps everything get going so we don't have to add extra fat because there's plenty of fat in the bacon and the bacon fat is really nice and flavorful so it's a really nice medium to cook everything in so the water just kind of like warms up the bacon and helps it render out a little bit more evenly than if you were to just pop the bacon in a pan that's totally dry so i'm using bacon the original but if you use turkey bacon or like a vegan bacon then you're gonna need to add a little bit of fat because it doesn't have enough to to give to you to cook it all in so if you're using turkey bacon i would throw a tea tablespoon of oil in there in addition to the water and render it all out and vegan bacon just go a little heavy on the fat it'll taste great just you need a little bit more fat so this is gonna start sizzling and and cooking down this is gonna take a few minutes so this is a good time to get your prep out of the way so i'm going to smash and chop some garlic you don't need to be like precise here we just want to you know get tiny pieces we want little itty bitty pieces that are going to melt and cook down with everything else i know vito they're really excited because the bacon's bacon's cooking down everything is smelling bacony the good old smash and top so when you when you do this little water trick it starts to sound like a very aggressive sizzle which might be alarming but that just is because the oil and water don't mix and as soon as the water cooks off and you just have your rendered out fat it'll be it'll become quiet and then after that your bacon will start to brown see how loud it is right now that's because we're just getting started there's still water there's still water in there it doesn't like being there with the oil they're mad at each other but so the fat's gonna win [Music] this recipe uses a whole pound of greens i'm using collards for this but you can really use any kind of green you want i'm going to strip them off their stems because the stems are super tough and you don't want that but the one thing you want to take note of is whether your green is tender or hardy collards no i'm gonna be doing everything a little weird because i cut my thumb this is the worst cut i've had in years i almost lost my thumb what happened uh i was making a kale salad so uh if i look like i'm holding stuff we're doing stuff weird it's because my thumb is hanging on by a thread anyways uh what was i saying collards or hearty greens which means that you know you can tell if your greens are tender hearty but just giving them a taste hearty greens kind of are stringy a little tough tender greens are nice and crisp and you can easily eat them raw so if you've got a hearty green like a collard or kale or carrot tops or what else is a hearty green a squirrel those need to cook down a little bit longer to get like a nice silky texture so we're talking like 40 45 minutes for tender greens like dill parsley radish tops swiss chard that stuff cooks down really really quick 10 minutes so um the only thing you really need to think about is if you have a hearty or a tender green i don't really like to mix the two because if you cook if you cook a hearty and tender green together the tender greens are going to get overcooked and a little bit muddy by the time the hearty ones are nice and soft but if you just know which one's which then you're good you're good i don't think people eat enough collards i don't know why kale is the rage you know i'm a big fan of collard salads just like a kale salad give it a shot i think it's going to be 20 21 is going to be all about college i can feel it we're getting over kale you know i know i know clementine loves it clementine you want to leave you want a leaf yeah she loves her greens she's running away to her bed now she's gonna gnaw on that for the rest of the afternoon so i've got bacon here as my like flavor base but you can really use anything that's got like a lot of punch of flavor it doesn't have to be meat either go for like tons of uh melted down onions that's like a really nice as a really nice sweet deep savory flavor garlic ginger we're going to use anchovies in the second dish which always brings a lot of punch but get creative if you don't have a lot of aromatics around a spice blend would be really good some adobo seasoning garam masala little bear berry spice anything like you just want something punchy to get it going to make the whole thing like super flavorful because greens it's a lot of greens you know greens they just taste like greens you gotta give it a little bit of help to taste tastes more than just like greens okay so i have stripped all of this i'm gonna stack my leaves she's waiting here for another leaf not after you bit me it was bad she's she's going through her adolescence so she's turned into an absolute monster all of you people who got quarantined puppies call me in two years the honeymoon i know i know she's like she just really wants a leaf okay so i like to cut it lengthwise once just to shorten the pieces a bit and then we're going to cut it crosswise into like quarter inch strips but you don't have to be really precise here um because it's all going to melt down but it's just really nice to have small-ish pieces because our pasta is smallish and you kind of want everything to be about the same size and also this is how i cut my thumb i was cutting kale like this and i wasn't paying attention and you know i was like drinking some wine listening to a podcast totally zoning out and i just went went for it right down through the thumbnail almost to the bone i have no first aid kit i was on my last band-aid and and clementine was just trying to like lick up all the blood off the floor which was like freaking me out i have a problem with blood too so i immediately passed out it's really dramatic your faces i wish people could see that you should record this screen you were myself i was by myself i called my husband and then he talked me through the he like is the first aid guy at work he wraps up everyone's stitches and stuff so he talked me through it we got through it okay but now we have more bandages in the house now it was with this knife look at how much fat came out of it this is why i don't like to add fat in the beginning to render it out because there's plenty look at my collards wow and my thumb is intact it looks like so many greens i know but it's totally not it'll cook down into nothing you'll see believe me but right at this point i think it's really pretty it looks like confetti clem is super into it too okay now that my bacon has cooked i'm gonna scoop it out with a slotted spoon i'm gonna try and leave behind as much fat as possible because that's what we're gonna cook everything in and then we're gonna set the bacon aside add it back to our dish right at the end so it stays nice and crisp and scoop scoop what's also nice is there's a little bit of fawn that's developed fond is the brown bits that build up on the bottom of the pan when you cook protein and it's just like has like really caramelized concentrated meaty flavor so that'll also add a lot of nice flavor to our dish okay last bacon bit we did it would you like to see my bacon here we'll bring it in close whoa huh whoa look at that cool little rotate now i'm gonna add my chopped garlic turn this back on we're just gonna cook this for a couple minutes we just want to bring out the like aromatics of the garlic and soften them a bit but we're not going to go until it's brown just you know a little kick start kick start the cooking it's going to fully break down when we braise it with all the greens and stuff and i've also got chili flakes so as you can tell like so we're starting with really really flavorful things we've got bacon bacon fat garlic chili flake really want to start with a big punch of flavor at the beginning so that our greens pasta everything that simmers in there is going to be really nice and flavorful i'm using a full half teaspoon because i like it a little spicy but you can use less if you want but but don't skip it just just add a pinch it really like balances out the richness of everything kind of heat always kind of cuts cuts fat and stuff like that so that's nice now it's time to ready your braising engines all these collards are going in i promise it's going to cook down into nothing this is this is four portions you will see this is a great way to eat so many greens it feels so rich and so luxurious and you don't feel like you're just eating a bowl of vegetables okay for my cooking liquid i'm going with more chicken broth it just adds a really nice savory rich flavor and as it cooks down the broth gives it a lot of body i'm going for a homemade broth so that has a lot of natural gelatin that's going to make it feel super like sticky and rich and awesome but if you have water that's totally fine too we have so many things you know making a lot of flavor happen so don't worry about it you just might need a bump up the salt bump up the fat but it'll still be delicious if you have bouillon cubes or bouillon powder that's a great thing to throw in here just the one thing to be cautious of is this is going to cook down quite a bit i put two and a half cups of broth in here and it's going to simmer down to like just barely a cup so if you are using bouillon cubes or or bouillon powder just make sure you don't overdo it because it could get too salty but right now i'm going to start with a big pinch of salt and some pepper and i'm going to bring this whole thing up to a boil mix it up really well and then we're going to add our beans it's a beans and greens party you gotta have the beans so i'm using canned cannellini you can use any kind of bean you like i like to use a bean that's already cooked um it doesn't have to be canned if you have like cooked beans at home that's fine too but we're not going to be cooking it down long enough for us to cook a dry bean from scratch in here so you know but you know you know what you could do if you wanted to cook your beans from dry okay we're going off script we're going off script off the script what i would do is i would soak the beans um then cook your beans until they're like almost there and then throw all of your greens in there we're gonna do a little reverse situation and then let your greens cook down that it will also be really really delicious so many recipes coming at you huh it's just once you get the concept you can kind of do whatever you want so oh i want to show you up close hold on we are haven't even come to a boil yet it's just getting warm and you can see the greens look like they're almost like half the size already right did you see it was filled to here it was filled to the brim and just as soon as the pot got warm it cooked down so so much and it's gonna cook down even more our mixture has come to a boil so now i'm gonna add the beans i'm gonna come down to a simmer and we're going to partially cover and let it go so i like to do beans with my greens because i just really like contrast of like the nice silky texture you get from the greens and the nice creamy pops you get from the beans and then and then i throw pasta in there because then it just feels like a really complete warm hearty dish in one pot that's filled with a lot of vegetables and fiber and you know and you can make it with whatever you've got so if you don't have collard if you don't have dill if you don't have parsley you probably have you probably have wilty radish tops right you probably have beet tops i'm sure you've got you've got the greens you need to make this fennel fennel fronds that's fantastic i really like carrot tops but they can be a little aggressive so i think they're best mixed with something more mild like a little bit of spinach or swiss chard some watercress would be good spicy philly mustard fantastic little frilly mustard with like smoky bacon that's a good combo sorry i went off on like a bubblegum shrimp kind of green situation so now it's time for the pasta to join the pot my collards have been simmering away and they are super tender silky wait i need to get you a close-up of this you have to see what's happened the transformation the transformation these have been simmering and the liquid has very much reduced there's still some you can see there's still some but a lot of it's cooked down and the collards have gotten really tender and silky and darkened in color it's a totally different thing that when it went in the pot which is really cool and here's our pasta this starchy liquid so this is the broth this is the orcheti that's been soaking in broth and the liquid's gotten super starchy and when we cook that up it's going to turn it into a really really creamy sauce for our pasta in while we're here it's going to get finished with some parm we're going to throw our bacon bits back in there a little butter i'm gonna see if it needs a little more red pep cool now this starchy liquid that's happened from the pasta soaking is really really really vital it's gonna really thicken everything up so make sure you get in the bowl and scrape every last bit of starch that's collected at the bottom you want all of it it's really going to make this very very creamy now because we've soaked our pasta while we're doing everything else it's going to cook up really fast without a whole lot of liquid just watch it's just like it just like transforms and this way we don't need a second pot which is great so once this comes up to a boil it's basically going to be there we're going to be ready to to dig in finishing touches coming up soon okay so it's really cool it's like transforming in front of my eyes you go you're going to bubble for me i need to see a bubble i need a bootlodge look at how creamy that looks it's like practically coating the spoon and once we add the butter it's gonna be even richer the pasta is cooked now so i'm gonna pull this off the heat and we're gonna finish it up every time i've ever shot a video i've forgotten at least one step and i forgot to step again we want to taste everything before you put your pasta in there so you make sure it's really nice and seasoned and the pasta gets seasoned and fed up i totally forgot i totally forgot i'm gonna taste it now it's okay if this happens to you you'll be fine i'm gonna be fine so you're gonna be fine but this is a trend i've never shot a video for anybody in my entire time shooting videos where i didn't forget one thing but luckily that seasoned really well i just got lucky there the big pinch i added at the beginning was enough okay so i'm gonna add a pot of butter this is gonna enrich everything i'm gonna add most of the bacon back i like to keep a little bit to put on top and some cheese but we're gonna hold back on a little once again for the top a little garnish and stir this up wow i got real lucky there had a good amount of spice it's like i've made it before or something okay the butter has melted in there the cheese is melted in there gonna give it another taste it's delightful we're gonna plate her up a little bacon little extra cheese to go on top let me grab my bowl i'm gonna grab my ladle i don't have a ladle so this is my ladle i don't even have a big spoon okay look at that you can't look at it but you will you will shortly okay cool i'm gonna finish it up a little bit more crunchy bacon because why the hell not right and then you know you know what you're getting into a little bit little bit of this cheese yum it's such a nice like hearty bowl that feels so rich and comforting but you're eating so many vegetables it's like a trick honestly because it feels so rich like there's like a braised you know lamb shank in here but there isn't wild it's all it's just collard greens all right why don't i go a little crazy finish it with a little more red pepper flakes you know i like i can take the heat i like it i like a little heat whoa wow wow now we're getting crazy there's a fly in here that i've been trying to get for weeks he's very comfortable so comfortable look at how close i'm getting and he's not flying away but he gets away when i want to shoot him when i want to smack him i guess he's just part he's like another pet now you know it's fine you know at least he's being respectful he's not landing on the food okay here we go here is my collard greens with cannellini beans so steamy look at that so here i've plated up a bowl of my deitolini with chickpeas finished it with a little dollop of yogurt some more parsley you know because we're here for the greens so why not some more greens on top huh whoa look at that all right so i got my nice bowl of silky collard greens cannellini beans bacon parm pepper flakes this is great awesome i'm digging in oh yeah there's oroketsi in here there's so much going on it's greens beans and things it's a lot happening a lot of things i think my favorite part about this is that you managed to get perfectly al dente pasta cooked in one pot which is really cool i that is all thanks to ideas and food check them out they also have a really good fondue recipe but um yeah i i'm getting like it tastes super creamy cheesy rich but it's it's still pretty light because it's mostly vegetables awesome right that little bit of pepper flake cuts through that rich cheesiness and i like the texture of like the chewy pasta with the crispy bacon make this it's great you've got you've got what you need to make this [Music] i hope you enjoyed watching me take beans and greens greens and beans that's not all right i hope you enjoyed watching me take greens and beans off script and i let me know if you try this out pop it in the comments below how did you decide to take greens and beans off script don't forget to like and subscribe to watch me next time here on offscript with sola

Channel: Food52

Views: 466,308

Rating: 4.9466014 out of 5

Keywords: Food52, food, cooking, recipe, chef, foodie, cook, home cooking videos, sohla, sohla el-waylly, sohla food52, sohla new show, off-script with sohla, Greens recipe, greens beans pasta recipe, easy dinner, soaking pasta trick, slow-cooked greens, collard greens, bacon, sohlae, sohla recipe, sohla cooking, dinner

Id: W5wxY614qGE

Length: 24min 30sec (1470 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 09 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/brookvill]

I'm really enjoying this series so much! major kudos for food52 for bringing us Sohla AND Rick content

[u/YourMombadil]

For real, every video she puts out just makes me so happy.

[u/serialragequitter]

omg but her absolute glee when she saw how horrified her editor was by her story of nearly severing her thumb while doing the very thing she is currently doing with the same knife

[u/Snoo14215]

Sohla needs to have a place where she can post recipes at least weekly. I need more of these!

[u/peppermintoreo]

Clementine's kraken moment for that piece of collard green is the best.

[u/_silence_is_violence]

ok i loved that she shared her thumb story while chopping the greens lol

[u/bobokeen]

This series is such a great concept - my wife tried a riff on the chicken and rice technique from last time, but with jollof rice and al pastor marinated chicken...it was absurdly tasty.

This recipe looks exciting to mess with too, though it's funny that she acts as if the addition of greens means it remains healthy forever even as she adds bacon, cheese, butter, and pasta.

[u/Hieillua]

Wish she'd just start her own channel.