Saturday, May 31, 2008

Raw Kale Salad with Tamari-Roasted Almonds


We're on a mission this week: to consume one bunch of kale every day. Half of today's bunch went into this invigorating salad, in which raw kale mellows and marinates in an aggressive dressing and comes to the table sprinkled with addictive, salty tamari-roasted almonds. If you don't have tamari-roasted almonds in your bulk section, make your own!

Make sure the kale is sliced as thinly as possible, and try to use the freshest kale you can find.

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons mirin
1 tablespoon tamari
1 teaspoon sesame oil
4 teaspoons rice vinegar
1 teaspoon maple syrup
1 and 1/2 teaspoons minced ginger
12 leaves lacinato kale, stemmed and sliced into very thin ribbons
1/4 cup tamari-roasted almonds, roughly chopped

Whisk together olive oil, mirin, tamari, sesame oil, rice vinegar, maple syrup and ginger and pour over kale in a large salad bowl. Marinate for at least an hour. When you're ready to serve, sprinkle with the tamari-roasted almonds.

Tamari-Roasted Almonds

Roast raw almonds in a hot dry skillet, stirring frequently, until they start to brown. Pour in a few tablespoons of tamari and stir until the tamari is stuck to the almonds. These will stay raw inside (which the store-bought ones don't), which makes them even tastier and more complex!

7 comments:

Daniel said...

Hi Hannah and Phoebe,
Depending on how big the bunches are, that could be a LOT of kale. I like the agressive goal-setting! :)

Seriously though, I'm hoping you will post more of your kale-related recipes as you go. We're trying to eat more of this green--along with swiss chard and collards--because of the high antioxidant content. Unfortunately, I just don't really have any that many recipes that call for kale (yet!).

Dan
Casual Kitchen

Christine said...

yeah, I've been buying my kale prewashed and cut in a bag---I have no idea how big a bunch is. But, um, I'll try the salad, anyway.

I Heart Kale said...

Hi Dan and Christine,

Bunch size certainly varies depending on where you buy, so we'll make sure our recipes specify a number of leaves rather than a portion of a bunch. For context, the bunches we've been using have about 24 medium-sized leaves in them.

We'll be posting more kale recipes this week, and you can also click the "kale" tag to see all of our previous kale-related posts. FoodBlogSearch is also a great way to comb all your favorite food blogs for any given ingredient--there's a search bar on the right-hand side of our blog.

Christine said...

Ooooh.

I made this stuff last night, thinking it would be good for dinner tonight. But...woke up and it looked like breakfast, to me.

YUM. I am one happy, kale-eating woman right now.

I Heart Kale said...

Kale for breakfast: way to be hardcore! Glad you enjoyed the salad, Christine.

Anonymous said...

This is the new favorite dish in our house! When offered oatmeal for breakfast this morning, my 8 year old asked if she could have a bowl of kale salad instead. Then we had to arm wrestle to see who would get the last bowl of it for lunch. (I won, heh heh.) Good thing we grow our own kale these days cuz we're gonna be making this again and again. Gonna try it with our collards & swiss chard, too.

Anonymous said...

I made this last night. It was deelicious! Thanks for the recipe and the great blog. I too love kale more than most other things.