Roasted head of curly kale

As our winter cuts of curly kale start to dwindle, we make our final harvest by removing the whole heads of leaf from the very top of the plant, still on the stalk. They’ll be around for a few weeks each year, usually in February or March on our farm and in our boxes. This trick is good for allotmenteers too, who could choose to cut their leaves as a whole head, when the plant starts to slow. We’ve been playing with them in kitchen, inspired by the recent trend for whole roasted heads of cauliflower. After some tinkering, we found we could get the inner leaves to cook while the upper leaves and outer edges became crispy and moreish. The trick is to prop it on something to raise it out of the roasting tray so that it doesn’t collapse under its own weight as the leaves wilt and to allow the hot air to flow into middle.