Spicy Squash Salad with Chickpeas and Kale

And now, finally, a recipe. This is a bright, fresh main-course salad, a perfect balance of the deep roastyness of the squash and the fresh crunch of the carrots and the toasty crunch of the almonds and the profound umami mmmmm of the miso. It makes a lovely unwintery-feeling winter meal.

The salad is adapted from this wonderful Heidi Swanson recipe on 101cookbooks. I made it the way she wrote it all last winter, but this winter, in a fit of—what? high-protein, high-minded healthfulness?—I am swapping in chickpeas for the potatoes. I am also using carrots instead of radishes, but that’s just because only Birdy and I love radishes. I also use way more kale than she does, so it’s more like a kale salad with squash and chickpeas. But you don’t mind, do you?

Full disclosure: One of our closest friends is Moroccan, and he brings us back harissa that is so aromatic and deeply gorgeous, so bursting with the fragrance of bright preserved lemons and warm spice, that it actually lifts my mood just to open the jar. But all you can do is use the best harissa you can find. And if you can’t find any that tastes really good to you, I am convinced that a Thai red chili paste would be a delicious substitution. (In which case, I would likely head more in a coconut oil than olive oil direction.)

Spicy Squash Salad with Chickpeas and Kale

Serves 4 as a main course or 6-8 as a side.

Ingredients

2 delicata squash
(or about 3 or 4 cups of another kind of squash that’s been cut up and, if necessary, peeled)

1 (15-ounce) can of chickpeas, drained and blotted dry with a paper towel

1/4 cup olive oil


1/4 cup white miso


1 tablespoon harissa paste 
(or to taste)

3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

4 or 5 robust leaves of kale, de-stemmed and finely slivered or chopped

1 carrot, very thinly sliced

1/2 cup slivered almonds, fried (do this over medium heat in a small pan in a teaspoon of olive oil until the almonds are just browned, 2 or 3 minutes)

Heat the oven to 400. Cut the delicata squash in half length-wise, and use a spoon or melon baller to scrape out all the seeds. Leave the peel on, and cut the squash into 1/2-inch-wide half-moons.

In a small bowl whisk together the olive oil, miso, and harissa. Put the squash in a large bowl with 1/3 cup of the miso-harissa oil. Use your hands to toss well, then gently stir in the chickpeas with a rubber spatula. Turn everything out onto a large, rimmed baking sheet, and bake until the squash is full tender, and everything is baked through and browned, about 25-45 minutes. (Sorry! It really kind of depends! That’s why the range is so darned big!) Toss once or twice along the way after things start to brown a bit.

In the meantime, whisk the lemon juice into the remaining miso-harissa oil. Stir the kale into the leftover dressing and set aside.

Put the warm roasted vegetables in a bowl and toss with the kale mixture, carrots, and almonds. Taste and adjust the seasoning as needed. Serve warm or at room temperature.