What You need:
3 medium size heads of Escarole
1 medium size head of Savoy Cabbage
8 Cloves of Garlic
About ¼ cup of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 Stick to Stick and a half of Hormel Pepperoni depending on your taste
3 small cans of goya (or other brand) cannellini beans
Fresh Cracked Pepper
Fresh Ground Sea Salt
To Serve: Hard Crust Italian bread, red pepper seeds-freshly grated parmesan cheese.
This dish may seem a little involved, but really it's not. You get to make a whole bunch of it for the week and give it out to friends. My father and I go nuts over this dish. Served with nice hard crusted Italian bread, it is a meal all by itself. This is a signature dish of my late Grandma Ann.
Step One:
You MUST soak the escarole. Simply rinsing it is not enough. Now, this may seem a little strange to some folks but here is how you clean the escarole. . .Make sure your kitchen sink is spic and span clean. That means free soap too. Put the drain stopper in. Take the escarole and rip the head into three or four pieces. Throw it in the sink. Yes that's right. Escarole grows in the dirt, so believe me you are doing it a favor. When you buy it is loaded with sand and dirt. Ok, once all your escarole is in the sink, turn on the cold water and fill sink to the top. Let escarole just sit there and soak while you prepare the other items. Make sure it's all submerged. What's happening is the sand and dirt is falling from the leaves and to the bottom of your sink while the escarole floats to the surface.
Step Two:
While the escarole is soaking, start dicing all of your garlic. Nothing fancy. Just chop it up into pieces.
Step Three:
Put garlic aside, and start cutting up pepperoni. Cut sick of pepperoni in half lengthwise, then start slicing pieces of it until it's all sliced. Thickness of slice should be about 1/16 of an inch or just as thin as you can get it with a knife. Put pepperoni aside.
Step Four:
Cut head of Savoy cabbage in quarters. Slice up quarters. Not to thin, about ¼ inch or so. Put cabbage in strainer and rinse. Put aside.
Step Five:
Heat up Extra Virgin Olive Oil in the largest sauce pot you own. (The reason why I say this is because all the escarole and cabbage may not fit at first. It will reduce in size by about half once cooked. Once it cooks down you can add any remaining ingredients. You need a big pot at first). Once oil is hot on a medium flame, put in the garlic and cook until golden brown. DON'T BURN GARLIC.
Step Six:
As garlic is cooking, take escarole off the surface of water, place as much as you can in strainer, rinse thoroughly and quickly throw it into the pot with the garlic and oil. Throw some cabbage on top along with some garlic and pepperoni sea salt and fresh cracked pepper. Repeat this in layers until pot is full or ingredients are finished.
Step Seven:
Pour Three cups of water over top, cover pot ant let simmer on medium / low for 90 minutes. Toss/ Stir after 45 minutes.
Step Eight:
After 90 minutes of cooking. Pour in all the beans (the entire content of the cans). Stir well from bottom to top until all ingredients are evenly distributed. Cover pot and let cook on medium/low heat for another 45 minutes.
Step Nine:
Turn off flame let sit for ½ hour. Stir thoroughly again. Spoon contents of pot into serving bowl, top with parmesan cheese and red pepper seeds. Serve with Italian bread.
