Oh hello. Today you find me preparing a traditional vegetable dish for the family. It's
classically English. It's sea kale with melted butter sauce. For this recipe, you will need...
First I'm going to prepare my sea kale. Sea kale is very popular with the wealthy. It's
because it's grown like rhubarb. It's forced or blanched, covered over so when it's young it
doesn't get any light and then it grows tall and pale in colour. Mr Vert has sent me some that's
grown naturally in the gardens, for the servants. This will be bitter in taste and more stringy.
Sea kale also grows in the wild,
along the coast. There the plant is very short and really quite bitter!
Now I've bunched the sea kale together
I shall tie it up and trim the ends so they're all the same length.
Now they're ready for cooking.
While they're boiling I shall make my melted butter sauce.
I'm going to make a roux with melted butter and flour.
Stirring it until it becomes a thick paste.
Melted butter sauce, often just called melted butter,
is one of the most popular sauces here in Britain.
The French say that we only have one sauce and that is melted butter.
I suppose that depends on whether you think gravy is a sauce.
For a cook in a middle class family this would be the only sauce she'd really need to know.
It's nice and easy and it goes with most things.
You can then add anchovies or mushrooms or herbs if you wish to change the flavour.
Although like this, it is ideal for most vegetables.
I'm now going to add some salt, pepper and a little vinegar.
And finally, I like to add a little nutmeg.
Perfect.
Now that the sea kale has had a good twenty minutes boiling
and is nice and soft, I shall take it out to drain.
I need to let it drain well for I don't want any water left on it
otherwise it might slip off the plate. Now I'm going to put my sauce into the sauce boat.
And now to present the sea kale.
And there you are. Sea kale with melted butter sauce.