One of my favorite neighborhood places for late-night eats is the restaurant and bar Sidecar in Brooklyn. The kitchen is open until 4 AM and it offers so many better options than all-night diner food. I was recently with a friend for cocktails and even though we’d enjoyed an extremely satisfying meal at another restaurant just several hours before, the scent of bacon and honey wafting through the air was enough to make us ask what was being made. It was kale with bacon and honey and we immediately ordered it, ignoring our already full stomachs. It was worth it. The wilted kale in a small amount of broth mixed with the crisp salty bacon and smooth sweet honey provided the perfect combination of textures and flavors, satisfying nearly every late-night craving someone may have. I decided that I needed to attempt my own version of it and luckily enough I had just received kale in my CSA share. The next day I experimented, coming up with what I consider to be a pretty decent imitation of Sidecar’s version. If nothing else, I managed to create that same mouth-watering scent—my mother and sister walked into my apartment right when I finished cooking and exclaimed, “What smells so good?!”
Method: Cook bacon over medium heat until crispy and then drain on a paper towel. Discard all but one tablespoon of the bacon drippings in the pan. Sauté the onions and garlic until softened. Return the drained bacon to the pan. Add the kale a little at time, cooking it until it’s wilted. Stir in apple cider vinegar, vegetable stock, and honey and simmer for 20 minutes, or until about half of the liquid has evaporated. If you prefer, you could continue cooking the kale until all of the liquid is gone, but the broth is ideal for soaking up with a piece of crusty bread. //Shannon Sharpe
Ingredients for Shannon Sharpe’s Kale with Bacon and Honey (Serves 4)
6 slices of bacon chopped into small pieces
1 small onion
2 garlic cloves
1 bunch of kale
¼ cup of apple cider vinegar
¼ cup of vegetable stock
¼ cup of wildflower honey
