Dalai Mama Dishes

by Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Dalai Mama Dishes

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

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Kale Slaw

Posted November 30, 2009
Find more about salad , slaw , kale , dalai mama , vegetable
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The purple looks kind of garish here, but I swear in person it didn't look like a black velvet painting of a salad.

This is so easy to make it feels like getting away with something.

And it's such a great antidote, you know? My mother made two pecan pies so that we would have some leftover. And we did. Did. Before eating it.

Or these. Cookies that my mom made just because. You know, on the off chance someone was going to need a little extra treat. "Does this count as one cookie or three cookies?" my dad always asks. "I mean, if I eat two, am I really eating *six*?"

Which is why you need kale, kale, KALE! It's good, I swear. I mean, it's not pecan pie, but it's really, really good.

I made this batch last week, with green kale and no cheese or nuts, and it was still yummy. There was a bit left over, and I tossed it into a veggie soup the next day! Sometimes Birdy takes leftovers of it in her lunch box. Strange but true.

Is this the face of gluttony? Apparently. It also seems to be the face of a kale-eating zombie. Hello? Hello? Is anybody home in there?

Luckily, with Thanksgiving over, we can say good-bye to gorging on rich food. Phew.

This is not unlike the post I wrote a month ago, after Halloween. Only after Halloween, it was mostly the kids who'd gorged so profoundly that I had to scour everybody out with cauliflower. After Thanksgiving--well, it's a horse of a different color, isn't it. I have shoveled more pie into my pie hole than Ahab shoveled coal into his ship's, er, coal hole. I have slurped ginormous wooden spoonfuls of gravy right out of the pot in the name of "tasting for salt." I have devoured turkey and I have roasted turkey and I have smoked turkey. Well, actually, it was my father-in-law who smoked a turkey. Sitting right on top of a Wonderland toadstool with his giant hookah full of poultry. No, in his smoker, silly. Oh did I eat that smoked turkey. And smoked turkey gravy. And pie. And stuffing. And mashed potatoes with ladlefuls of perfectly salted smoked turkey gravy. And cranberry sauce. And corn pudding. And broccoli with cheese sauce. And braised leeks. And pie with great big gigantic blobs of whipped cream. Oh gosh, and our friend Jonathan's hard cider. With Calvados. Holy moly.

Because of the way we celebrate this particular holiday--with back-to-back feasting on four meals over two days at two different households--we are inclined to eat way too much and for way too long. Ben, in fact, ate so much that he actually barfed. He barfed right down the stairs at my in-laws house. Or maybe up the stairs, as that was the direction he was headed runningly. "Thanksgiving Roman style!" he said, because he is a person who knows you need to make a vomitorium joke even while the barf is still fresh on the risers. "Are you sure you're not sick?" I said, fretting about the possibility of more barf and more cleaning up of barf and more other people barfing, and he patted his belly and said, "Nope. I just ate too much pie. All better now." I was simultaneously horrified and relieved.

Which brings me to the kale slaw. The thing is, you're going to think this sounds crazy. "My kids won't even eat kale cooked," you might be saying to yourself. But that's the point exactly. It turns out that kids actually prefer raw kale, which retains all of its natural sweetness and crunch. All kids feel this way, I am concluding, based on my survey of kale-eating children in two different households. Usually I sauté kale with lots of garlic and salt and olive oil, and my kids like it fine that way. But this fresh salad? They eat it with their fingers and really... well... like it. I was going to write "love it," but that doesn't seem quite true. Still, we are on a massive raw kale kick around here, and right now I feel about cooked kale the way I felt about cooked fish after I first ate sushi: it just tastes so cooked. Besides, this bright salad takes about 4 seconds to put together, it's super sweet and fresh tasting, you need way less kale than you would for cooking it, and it is like a beacon of healthfulness shining through the fog of pie and gravy. Over here! it beckons. You'll be fine now! I also like it because kale is still readily available all over the place here, and it's even sweeter now, after the first frost. (I sound like Holly Hobby Makes a Salad or something, but it's really true.)

Here are the most important things: the kale has to be very fresh; you have to sliver it very fine; and you have to make sure it's lemony and garlicky and salty enough. The walnuts and parmesan are nice but not crucial additions. You can leave them out and just eat the kale. And it will scour that pie right out of you. Also, if you stuff enough kale into your belly, the eggnog can't get a foothold in there and you can drink all you like. I'm pretty sure about that.

Kale Slaw
Serves 4
Total time: 5 minutes

As long as it's fresh, you can use any kind of kale: curly green kale, purple kale (which is what I used here), or dinosaur kale, which is the kind that has kind of warty-looking, spear-shaped, super-dark leaves. I have used and liked them all.

4-6 very large leaves of kale, washed and spun dry
1 garlic clove, peeled and pressed through a garlic press
1-2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (from around half a lemon)
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (or half as much table salt)
Freshly grated parmesan (optional)
A handful of coarsely chopped walnuts (around 1/3 of a cup), toasted at 350 for 5 minutes (optional)

Strip the ruffly leaves off the kale's stems by grasping the bottom of each stem and pulling your hand up it forcefully. That sounds all wrong, but you'll see. It's easy. Or else simply cut the leaves off the stems with a knife. Discard the stems. Now stack and bunch the leaves together, then use a large, very sharp knife to sliver them. Stir together the garlic, lemon, oil, and salt in a large bowl, then add the kale and toss. Taste it, and add more lemon, oil, or salt as needed to make the flavors bright and balanced. Toss in the cheese and walnuts and serve as a side dish or salad course.

Get a printable version of this recipe.

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Kale Slaw

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About Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman is the author of the memoir, Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family, available online and in bookstores nationwide.

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