Soul Food Style Mixed Greens goes great with Garlic Mashed Potatoes and Gravy, and together the two side dishes are a really good accompaniment to just about any Southern Soul Food meat dish.

Soul Food Style Mixed Greens Recipe-

Ingredients:

(serves 6)

• 4 large bunches of greens (2 bunches of collards, and one bunch each of turnip and mustard makes a great combination, but you can use just about any combination of sturdy leaves taken from leaf vegetables and/or root vegetables)
• 12 oz. thinly sliced and chopped Hickory Smoked Country Ham (essential ingredient, this specific ham only)
• 1 small to medium onion, peeled and finely chopped
• ¹⁄₃ cup cold bacon grease (plan ahead for this recipe, and save the grease from cooking bacon)
• ¹⁄₂ cup lamb broth (you can use beef broth, too, but lamb broth will produce the richest flavor for Soul Food Style Mixed Greens)
• Freshly ground course sea salt and black peppercorns.
• 1 tsp. sugar

Directions:

1. Fill your sink with fresh cold water.
2. Place the greens in—be sure you have enough water so they float.
3. Use your hands to swish the greens vigorously in the water, then release them. The soil will drop to the bottom and your cleaned greens will rise to the top. Allow 20 minutes for the greens to sit in the water.
4. Taking care not to scoop up any soil from the bottom, scoop out the greens.
5. If you see or feel any soil still on the greens, repeat the cleaning process.
6. Put the cleaned greens in a colander and flush them one more time under running water.
7. Now rip off any thick veins and stems, and tear the leaves into large chunky pieces.
8. Heat the bacon grease in a large pot over medium-high heat.
9. Next add in your greens and chopped onion, and stir well with the bacon grease for 2 or 3 minutes.
10. Now add in the cooked ham pieces, also the ham or chicken broth, salt, pepper, and sugar, and stir until blended well together.
11. Cover the pot and adjust the heat to where your greens are cooking at a mild simmer—it is important that you do not boil them. A long, gentle simmering is what will tenderize the greens into the melt-in-your-mouth texture desired.
12. Water will release from the greens as they cook, producing quite a bit of liquid. This is normal, and the liquid will cook down. You may even want to add some water after a while, if they are getting too dry and risk burning on the bottom. Exercise due diligence, you don’t want watery greens, just nicely moist when ready to serve.
13. Usually about 3 hours of simmering will be enough to properly tenderize the greens, but if you can plan ahead of your meal enough to allow them to simmer for 5 or 6 hours, your Soul Food Style Mixed Greens will be all that much better.

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