Have you ever tried eating a kale salad? Perhaps with an addition of an orange? And also with the apple?
I bought kale for the first time in my life a month ago. Better late than never!
As far as I know, here in my area kale ‘was not used’.
Or at least it ‘was not used’ in our home because when I was a child my mom certainly never cooked it. And I don’t think she does now.
Kale – like rapini, celeriac, and other vegetables that are now common – wasn’t available for sale.
Or, let’s put it this way, since I had never eaten it and therefore never knew of its existence, if it was for sale, I obviously didn’t notice.
Neither when I was young, that is when I was thirty years younger than now, nor later. (Definition of later: since I was blessed with a husband who shudders at the word ‘kale’, and a daughter who does too.)
And the fact that my son, bless him, sometimes keeps me company doesn’t help much. Because he only eats it cooked.
Which, as I already told you in the recipe for gratinated cauliflower, happens rarely (due to the smell, and the aforementioned husband and daughter). A cat biting its own tail, in short (cat?, or was it a dog? 🤭).
Well, let’s get to about a month ago. I buy kale. And the first question, more than obvious, I ask myself is: and now how do I cook it?
I immediately ask for help from the irreplaceable friends of my group (come on, join too!), and I receive various very useful tips, two of which I put into practice. One is this kale salad with apple and orange.
My friend Tania convinced me to try raw kale, both by talking about it among us in chat and through this lovely recipe of hers. And so I ventured into this my first experiment of taste based on raw kale.
Since I had recently experienced the satisfaction of combining cabbage and oranges in a salad that I really liked – yesterday’s recipe – trying a kale salad with orange was a must at that point, and since I also had green apples at home, why not add them? 😊
👇 More salad ideas: 👇
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Very cheap
- Preparation time: 5 Minutes
- Portions: 1
- Cooking methods: No cooking
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Autumn, Winter
Ingredients
Just like I did yesterday for the cabbage and orange salad, I won’t give you the quantities. I believe that for these somewhat particular salads it’s right to go by feeling, especially with kale, which has a strong flavor when raw (stronger than cabbage and savoy cabbage). Apple and orange adequately balance the flavor but in the proportion each one deems right for themselves. For me, in a small bowl of kale, I added half a green apple and a small orange.
- kale (tender leaves)
- orange
- green apple
- extra virgin olive oil
- white wine vinegar
Tools
- Knife
- Salad Bowl
Preparation
Choose the inner leaves of the kale head, the most tender ones, wash and dry them.
Remove the stem and the central part (use only the leaves).
Peel the orange and slice it.
Wash and dry the apple and slice it (I didn’t peel it).
Dress with oil and vinegar. I didn’t use balsamic vinegar this time, in my opinion, the intense taste of kale finds the right counterbalance in the acidity of white vinegar.
Enjoy your meal!
Salt-Free Tips
I’m not repeating word for word what I wrote yesterday in the recipe for cabbage and orange salad (you can peek there), but for this kale salad, it remains all valid, even amplified because the intense flavor here is well perceived. I renew my advice to also use nuts, seeds, or gomasio, all excellent to complete this salad.
If you’re interested in reducing or eliminating salt, always remember to:
▫ Gradually decrease salt, the palate needs to get used to it slowly and should not notice the progressive reduction.
▫ Use spices. Chili, pepper, curry, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, cumin…
▫ Use herbs. Basil, parsley, oregano, thyme, sage, marjoram, rosemary, mint…
▫ Use seeds. Sesame, pine nuts, almonds, walnuts…
▫ Use spicy vegetables or fruit. Garlic, onion, lemon, orange…
▫ Use my salt-free vegetable granule
▫ Prefer fresh foods.
▫ Avoid boiling, prefer cooking methods that do not disperse flavors (grill, foil, steam, microwave)
▫ Avoid bringing the salt shaker to the table!
▫ Occasionally allow yourself a treat. It’s good for the mood and helps to persevere.
If you don’t want, or can’t, give up salt:
▫ You can still try my recipes by salting according to your habits.
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