[shokkyy]

I've never eaten kale before and was thinking about growing some next year, so I bought some from the supermarket to try. I wasn't impressed. It was tough and chewy, though I did only give it a quick blitz in a stir fry. Does it always taste like that, or is it just that supermarket kale is old, tough leaves? I don't want to waste space on growing it unless it's going to taste a lot nicer than that.

[lmpd]

Kale is a wonderful vegetable - rich in all manor of nutrients, it is a bit tough, but if you strip out the thick centre stalk of the leaf and chop it up small it becomes a lot more palatable!!!

[Ice]

Kale is a wonderful vegetable - rich in all manor of nutrients, it is a bit tough, but if you strip out the thick centre stalk of the leaf and chop it up small it becomes a lot more palatable!!!

Absolutely right.  Strip off the centre stalk, stir fry or steam with some garlic and shallots, loverly.

[sunshineband]

I would guess that supermarkets don't have the best of the leaves, which as others have said make lovlely eating.

I wouldn't be without it and grow two or three different sorts 

[Growster...]

Shokky, we were the same as you, until we took the stalk out, shredded it fine and steamed it for several minutes, (and sometimes it has a bit of balsamic vinegar dripped on as well...)

We've grown about thirty this year, which is proving to be about 27 too many, they're getting huge...

And they stand all sorts of winter weather too! Go for it!

[arugula]

We've grown 'Nero di Toscana' a few times and as everyone else has said, provided you remove the central stalk, it is fantastic. We have it quite often in soups, not just minestrone, but a few finely shredded leaves thrown into any smooth soup whilst heating.  Now, I wonder if it would make good 'seaweed'?

This thread is getting into danger of needing to go into the cooking board. 

[New shoot]

I like the black italian kale as well.  You can cook it down and whizz it to make a really good pasta sauce as well    I've got that plus the usual curly red and green stuff this year.

If you grow your own kale you can pick the young tender leaves for stir frys and leave the bigger stuff for more serious cooking.  I think the supermarket stuff is pretty tough  tasteless stuff personally, so don't base your decision on that Shokky 

[lmpd]

Oh yeah the black Italian kale - cavolo nero is fantastic in a risotto!!!

[shokkyy]

Thanks for that. I'll give it a go then. The kale I bought was one of those bags of ready chopped leaves, so there's no way to really tell what the original leaves looked like.  A lot of leaf veggies really aren't very good at standing around for too long, and maybe that's what happened here. My cauli and calabrese were a waste of space this year, so I think I may forget them next year and try a bit of kale instead. My red/white/green cabbages did ok, so hopefully kale will too.

[Ice]

My vote also goes to black kale, it's far superior in taste in my humble opinion.

[mumofstig]

I'm growning Red Russian kale this year, it was still lovely and sweet in February when I was given some from a nearby plot.
Small leaves were salad worthy even then

[viettaclark]

Another great thing about black kale (apart from it's taste, hardiness and ease of growing from seed) is that I get minimum slug damage and the birds don't seem to go for it..
The supermarket chopped stuff is very tough and stalky. There's no comparison with the lush dark leaves from your own plants.
And they look attractive too.....

[Growster...]

Agree about all the soup mentions here - kale adds a lot of body when whizzed, and also looks lovely as tiny specks, rather like black pepper without the heat!

[sunshineband]

The lovely cabbage white does lay eggs on black kale, but seems to (mainly) avoid the curly sorts.


and I net them all so the pigeons leave them alone in the winter

[stentman]

Growing Kale for the first time this year and so far I am very impressed. Slugs have largely ignored it as have the butterflies and pigeons. Tastes like strong cabbage to me but so very different from the stewed to death stuff from my almost forgotten school days it's nice. Chopped none too fine and given a quick blanch and it's great as a veg with sunday lunch, chopped finer and lobbed in a stir fry for the last few seconds also works well. Curly Kale is firmly on my "to grow" list for next year