Wiener Wednesday: Vincent Price’s Hotchpotch of Curly Kale (1965)

By now we all know that Vincent Price was a beast in the kitchen, yes?

You definitely do if you’re a regular DiS1972 reader. His recipes appear on the blog numerous times (including a Wiener Wednesday!).

Todays dog dish, Hotchpotch of Curly Kale, is from Vincent and Mary Price’s Treasury of Great Recipes (1965).

It was recommended by cookbook author Jenny Hammerton of Silver Screen Suppers. She selected this recipe because of its whimsical name, and the fact that her attempt was a rousing success.

I love the little prologue to the dish that has to explain what kale is (this was published in 1969, after all!).

There are a number of hearty dishes in Holland called hotchpotch or hotchpot. They are all stews or mishmashes of various ingredients and our word “hodgepodge” derives from them. This one, made of potatoes, kale (a kind of cabbage), and sausage is a real peasant dish. It is very good, especially if you slather it with butter.

Let’s face it. Anything is better when slathered in butter.

As with so many other dishes, I scaled it down:

• 1 lb kale
• 1 12oz potato
• 1/2 lb franks

Before I added the franks, I cooked the living daylights out of the kale and the potatoes to make them easily mashable.

End result:

It is an odd dish.

It’s a little bit like palak paneer. A little bit like creamed spinach. It’s creamy without without cream. Probably because I slathered it in butter!

We even threw some on a roll:

Oh! A little bit of grated parmesan is a fabulous addition.

This was a fine dish, but one I will not make again. It’s just weird, right?

Thank you, Jenny for the recommendation, and thank you VP, for being such a superstar chef!