Green, leafy vegetables — which, let’s face it, are about all we have in the middle of winter apart from root vegetables and spuds — are renowned for being good for us. And the darker green they are, the better they are. The crucifer family in particular (kale, curly kale, broccoli, sprouting broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, Chinese cabbage, watercress and rocket) are rich in phytochemicals such as sulphorafane that may help to protect us from cancer.

But it seems relentlessly dreary to cook them in the normal fashion night after night and plonk them on the side of the plate — an open invitation, in fact, to leave them there. The answer is to incorporate them into our cooking by tossing them into soups, shredding them into pasta sauces, lasagne and rice dishes, and stirring them into lentils, curries and stir-fries, treating them not so much as a vegetable but as a crucial ingredient.

That’s why I like this dish so much, in which winter greens are cooked along with borlotti beans and chicken, each one contributing to the overall flavour while retaining its own. I pinched the idea from Larry Forgione, an American chef featured in Heart-Healthy Cooking for All Seasons by Marvin Moser (Pocket Books, 1996).

You could use cavolo nero, Swiss chard, kale, sprout tops, spring greens or Savoy cabbage, listed in my order of preference. By using cooked or canned beans (red kidney, haricot, whatever) and chicken breast, it all cooks very quickly into a lovely winter dish that makes eating your greens a pleasure.

Ingredients
Serves 2

Prep: 10 min
Cook: 40 min

2tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, squashed
2 chicken breasts, skin on
Sea salt and pepper
300g winter greens
1 onion, finely sliced
400g tin borlotti beans, rinsed
Some sprigs of thyme
300ml chicken stock, heated

Method

Heat half the olive oil with the garlic in a heavy frying pan and sear the chicken skin-side down for 3 minutes or until golden. Remove the chicken, season well and set aside.

Wash the greens and chop roughly. Add the remaining olive oil to the pan and cook the onion for 5 minutes until softened. Add the chopped greens and cook for 2 minutes, tossing well. Add the beans, thyme and hot stock, stirring, and bring to the boil.

Return the chicken to the pan and simmer gently, covered, for 20 minutes or until cooked. Add sea salt and pepper. Mash some of the beans with a potato masher to thicken the broth. Serve on warm dinner plates.

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