Cooking for Thanksgiving Weekend: The World's Most Famous Collard Green Recipe

Willie Crawford;s Awesome Collard Greens

During this week before Thanksgiving, let's talk about some of our favorite foods to cook. If you'd like to share a recipe, contact Mary Cooke on Facebook.

You're going to need something different to eat after your turkey dinner.  Collards would be great. Or maybe you'll have collard as part of your Thanksgiving meal.

Too much trouble. No, not really. Besides part of the joy of Thanksgiving weekend is bringing the family and/or friends together and enjoying cooking. Let me share with you a quick cooking tip. After you've purchased your collard greens and washed them thoroughly, cut out the stems.

Next take a three or four of them and roll them up like a cigar. Cut those in little strips, called chiffonades.  Click on this link for a video showing How to Chiffonade. The cook on YouTube is chiffonading smaller greens--basil I suppose, but the principle is the same.

A few years ago, Willie Crawford, famous marketer and author of the world's most famous recipe share his recipe with me for cooking collard greens. Here's Willie's recipe (copied from The Collard Patch Cookbook no longer in print).

                    Awesome Collard Greens

Willie Crawford is sharing the following, which is the world’s most famous written collards recipe.  For years it has been appearing on the Internet search as the most researched recipe for cooking collard greens. Here is his recipe with a comment:

Collard greens are a very nutritious and inexpensive treat. When I was growing up, my grandmother would buy about 50 cents worth of collard seeds and this would grow enough collard greens to feed us for the entire year. That 50 cents worth of seeds would produce hundreds of collard plants in our North Carolina backyard garden.

                Ingredients

2-3 medium smoked ham hocks or 2 pounds smoked pork neck bones

5 pounds of collards or several large bunches (If you can't get them fresh, frozen will do.)

2 teaspoon of salt

My favorite way to cook collard greens is very simple. I take 2 or 3 smoked ham hocks and put them in a large (6 quart) pot of water. Bring the water to a rolling boil and let it boil for about 1½ hours. Add more water as it boils down. The idea is to boil the ham hocks until they begin to fall apart. You should always cook pork very thoroughly and use proper food handling techniques. You want the ham hocks to be falling apart before you add the collard greens.

Take the collard greens and separate the leaves (if fresh). Now rinse each leaf individually under cold running water. After you rinse the collard greens thoroughly, stack several leaves on top of each other. Roll these leaves together. Then slice the leaves into thin strips using a cutting board and large knife. Rolling them together speeds up the process as you are slicing through several leaves at once.

Next, add your collard greens to the pot. Since this is a lot of collards, you will need to add them until the pot is full. Then allow them to wilt as they cook - then add more. Add you salt, cover and cook for thirty minutes on medium heat. Stir every few minutes to distribute the smoked meat taste evenly. Taste to confirm they are the tenderness you prefer. Serve with your favorite meat dish such as chitterlings. Eat the ham hocks or neck bones right along with the collards.

If you used frozen collards, simply pour them - frozen - right from the package to the pot.

If you use smoked neck bones, they usually don't take as long to cook as ham hocks.

People in my neck of the woods usually sprinkle lots of hot sauce on their collards. I like them that way. Give it a try.

Since this is a large pot full, just save the extras in the refrigerator. They should keep for a long time and actually get better as the juices settle in.

Willie Crawford

Willie Crawford

Willie Crawford, president of Willie Crawford, Incorporated, is a veritable rags to riches story.  Growing up on a tobacco farm so poor that he once had to wear his grandmother's shoes to school, he decided at an early age that he would not be trapped by the cycle-of-poverty that permeated his world.

After high school, Willie worked his way through North Carolina State University.  He earned a business degree and an Air Force commission on the same day.  After serving more than 20 years in the Air Force, Willie decided it was time to start living his dream.

In 1996, while still in the Air Force, Willie ventured onto the Internet and started building the business he planned to be his full-time occupation after his military retirement.  With hard work and a good business plan, Willie's big break came when he decided to share some of his favorite recipes with website visitors.  

After being prompted to write a cookbook full of his recipes, Willie wrote Soul Food Recipes Learned On A North Carolina Tobacco Farm.  This book has also been a huge commercial success.

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Wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving! 
Tomorrow, November 16, THE DREAM BUCKET can be downloaded free in Kindle form at Amazon. Your thoughts in a review on Amazon or GoodReads would be a special blessing.