This recipe from the Foxford Café cookbook with seasonal ingredients make this salad both nutritious and delicious …
“Kale is a really nutritious vegetable, even more so when eaten raw. The key to making it more palatable is in the prep – I use the slicer attachment on my food processor to do it. Then it’s a matter of dressing it with your favourite dressing – I love this maple tahini one.” @chef.kathleenf
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
1 large or 2 small heads of curly kale
Maple tahini dressing
Sea salt
Toasted sesame seeds or almonds (optional) For the pickled red onion
500g red onion
100ml cider vinegar
1/2 level tbsp salt
125g white sugar
Method
For the pickled red onion
1. First peel and halve the red onions top to bottom, then slice, using a food processor or a sharp knife, as thinly as possible. Add the vinegar, salt and sugar to a large bowl, stir, then mix in the sliced onion. Pack into an airtight container and refrigerate overnight, ideally, or for 3 hours minimum, for the flavours to develop. Use within 10 days.
For the salad
1. Take the head of kale, turn it upside down and hold by the base in your non-dominant hand. Using your dominant hand, keeping your fingers pinched on the stem, pull the leaves sharply downwards. They should pull off easily.
2. Place the leaves, now without stalks, in a bowl of salted cold water, swish and leave for 5 minutes. This helps get rid of any bugs. Repeat if the kale is dirty. Drain well and pat dry with a clean tea towel.
3. Now shred the leaves, either using the slicer attachment in a food processor or a large sharp chopping knife.
4. In a large bowl, toss the kale in a few tablespoons of the maple tahini dressing and a pinch of sea salt, and mix well. It can be easy to overdress kale, as it seems so bulky at this point, but it softens with the addition of vinegar and the salt will draw the water out, so less is more!
5. Pile the kale onto a platter or into a serving bowl and dress with some of the pickled red onion.
6. Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds or almonds if you want to add some crunch.