I love having greens in the morning.  It seems like the quickest shortcut to incorporating a serving of vegetables.  Today I didn’t feel like fussing around with a smoothie so I opted for a minimal dish of braised kale with one soft boiled farm egg.  This may sound like a time-consuming project for it being my first meal of the day.  However, it wasn’t so laborious.  I can give you the scoop…but only if you imagine me speaking like an operator.

I open my fridge and grab the bunch of kale.  I take out 5 leaves and put the remaining bunch back.  With cold water, I rinse off the leaves and pick them off the stems.  Allow to drain and in the meantime, slice one clove of garlic lengthwise.  Saute garlic in olive oil on low heat.  Tear up the kale leaves and add to the skillet.  Sprinkle a dash of salt, raise heat to low/medium and cover to allow to wilt.  I like to keep the leaves slightly wet to add moisture…some liquid will gather at the bottom of the pan, which I imagine to be full of vitamins.  Let simmer slowly in this liquid.  When the kale is completely wilted, turn off the fire and set aside to a different burner.  Keep covered with all the steam inside.  This whole process should take 5 – 8 minutes.

Now that the kale has been set aside, I can go ahead and make my egg.  I boil about 3 cups of water on high heat.  When the water is at a rapid boil, I plop in one egg and cook for 6 minutes.  Use the timer.  6 minutes seems to be the magic number to get your yolk perfectly gooey and not overcooked.  When the timer goes off, immediately remove the egg with a slotted spoon and shock in ice water.  After about a minute, gently tap the egg against something to crack and then remove the shell.

Plate the kale in a wide bowl and put egg on top (sliced in half).  Sprinkle coarse smoked sea salt and ground black pepper.  Drizzle a tiny amount of extra virgin olive oil.  Enjoy alone or with whole grain toast.  Brooklyn, EAT your heart out!