Kale is a Super-hero among vegetables, a phyto-chemical-antioxidant-rich green dragon, repairing DNA damage to cells, boosting immune systems, helping prevent macular degeneration, and even blocking the growth of cancer cells. It does all this weighing in at a measly 35 calories per raw cup! Kale is a super-hero you’ll want to befriend.
Is all that enough reason to pal around with a vegetable hero that tastes nasty? No, not in my book. I could rave about this kale salad but I’m going to quietly step aside and let Dr. Andrew Weil do the talking. He and chef Sam Fox opened True Food Kitchen in Phoenix, Arizona, and that restaurant has since blossomed into five others across the country. (Their mission: to serve food that promotes the diner’s well-being while being uncompromisingly delicious.) This is their Signature dish. (shocking, no?) This is the dish on their menu, year-round, that nearly everyone asks for. This is the dish that so many people enjoyed and went on to duplicate in their own kitchens that farmers all across the Phoenix area started pulling out other crops and planting instead, Tuscan kale. (It goes by other names too: Lacinato, cavolo nero, Russian kale or dinosaur kale.)
Here’s a story Dr. Weil tells:
Not long ago, a mother with a son and a daughter about seven and five came up to me in the Phoenix restaurant. ‘Tell Dr. Weil what your favorite thing to eat here is,’ she said to the girl, who was too shy to answer. Her brother spoke for her, ‘Kale salad! Kale salad!’ he said with great enthusiasm. {That made Andrew Weil very happy.} If folks in Arizona, which is hardly a bastion of veg-heads, can learn to love raw kale, it is only a matter of time before true love for it blooms across the land!
This is one of those rare salads that gets better as it sits, better the next day than it was the day before. Any bitterness present in the kale is softened by the lemon and salt in the dressing. With a pinch of red chile flakes, a scattering of crunchy toasted bread crumbs and shavings of Pecorino Romano, this is a salad you are almost 100% guaranteed to love, and I mean love.
You can assemble this salad in minutes and enjoy it for two days. He says it serves 8…I say 4. (Perhaps because it’s possibly twice as good as he says.)
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Kale Salad
Extra-virgin Olive Oil - ½ cup
Freshly-squeezed lemon juice - ¼ cup
Garlic - 3 cloves mashed – 2 may be enough for you
salt - ½ teaspoon
Kale - 2 bunches – about 14 ounces, 400g.
Grano Padano or Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese - ½ cup finely grated
Toasted Whole-wheat Bread Crumbs – 2 Tablespoons (or perhaps a bit more)
Grano Padano or Parmigiano-Reggiano or Pecorino Romano cheese shavings – for garnish
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A NOTE on the quantities – I find that the amount of dressing is more than sufficient to dress these leaves. I hold about ¼ of it back and drizzle on steamed vegetables. But make the entire amount…it may be different for you.
Remove the ribs from the washed and patted dry kale. Slice into ¼-inch shreds.
In a large salad bowl, whisk together the oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt and red pepper flakes. Add the kale and toss well to coat. Allow the salad to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes if you can, but at least 10. Add the grated cheese and the bread crumbs and toss again. (My preference is to have made more toasted bread crumbs so that I can scatter their crunch just before serving.)
Garnish with the cheese shavings before serving. (My preference, the Pecorino-Romano here.) Cover any leftovers (good luck with that) and refrigerate for up to 2 days.
{print the recipe }
(And just so you know – the salad in the large salad bowl was created half an hour before its picture was taken. The salad in the smaller bowl is a day old and hasn’t lost its rugged good looks, nor is it in any way limp or soggy.)
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Recipe from True Food – Seasonal, Sustainable, Simple, Pure by Dr. Andrew Weil, M.D. & Sam Fox
