kohl rabi or spring greens cooked in the Kashmiri style

This recipe is from Madhur Jaffrey's book ATaste of India - MJ you are my goddess 
Ideally this should be cooked with mustard oil (available from Asian grocers) if you can't get it use a good strong olive oil but don't let it heat to smoking point.  If using young leaves just remove the coarse central stem otherwise cut the greens up.  it cooks for a long time but don't be put off by that.

Serves 4
1 &1/4 lb kohl rabi leaves or spring cabbage
5 tablespoons mustard oil (or olive oil)
1/2 tsp salt
2 hot dried red chillies deseeded ( I never bother deseeding)
4-6 cloves garlic peeled & very coarsely chopped

Wash the greens & cut off any very coarse stems, if leaves are large hold several together & cut crosswise into 2 inch strips

Heat the oil in a very big pan over medium-high flame.  If using mustard oil let it get smokingly hot (burns away pungency & makes it sweet) let it smoke for a few seconds, just get olive oil hot don't let it smioke.

Put in greens, 4 pints of water, salt, chillies & garlic.  Bring to a boil. Cook uncovered for about an hour (yes an hour) over a medium - high flame, stirring occasionally until there is just a little liquid left in the pan & the leaves are tender.

Goes well with plain basmati rice & a meat dish like Rohgan Josh or Kashmir lamb with red chillies with a good dollop of plain yoghurt on the side.

4 - 6 cloves of garlic is nothing, I have recipes that call for 16 - 20 cloves now that is a lot   Because you're cooking it with a lot of liquid for a long time it doesn't taste especially strongly of garlic.  Of course it is an Indian recipe & garlic does figure large in Indian cookery but I'm a big believer in improvisation, if 6 cloves seems too much just use 3 instead.

I reckon it would work with kale & probably beetroot leaves, I tend to do it with spring greens since kohl rabi greens are hard to come by ususally.  There's only one way to find out isn't there?

I've cooked this recipe hundreds of times over the past 20 years & never once had a problem with the oil/water thing, obviously you have to be careful but that's a given when cooking anything, the worst thing that happens when I cook it is that it makes a bit of a noise.  I use a big pan & the leaves go in first so you're not adding the water straight on to the hot oil it's going in on top of the greens so there's a dispersal effect.  I don't think professional cooks would be able to print recipes in their cook books if there was a risk to life & limb other than the normal, hot, sharp, heavy of everyday cookery