The Ultimate Kale Salad

Photo of Birdy and kale by Douglas Merriam, courtesy of FamilyFun (where I published almost exactly this recipe but without the breadcrumbs. I'm sorry FamilyFun! I wasn't holding out on you! I just hadn't seen the light).

Things are breaking up a little here, straining at the seams. In the Venn diagram, the circle of my happy, beautiful life is overlapping exactly with the circle of my thrumming fretfulness. It’s lilacs and lilies of the valley and violets, purple-scented perfume breathing into our windows where I lie with my beloved partner, where our thriving children sleep with the rosy blossoms of their faces tipped up into the moonlight. And also my oldest friend has been ill, my heart’s companion of 41 years, and this illness is the hazy double of all the rest of it, the ghost outline of every dogwood tree and Mother’s Day card and meal and thought. I don’t really know how to write about it, except to say that sometimes I feel like I’m living multiple simultaneous lives. It’s not that I don’t love baked beans and great novels and spring and kids, because I do, and this is really my real and happy daily-ness (as it is hers). And also there’s this other thing that I can’t write about, and that isn’t really mine for the telling, that is the dark side of this blog’s moon, if you know what I mean. Also, because she will get better, it seems silly to burden you.

I took this one myself just yesterday!

Anyways. I don’t know why I mention this now, except that I sighed a little existentially as I was uploading this recipe (Kale? So what.). Even though this is possibly the single best recipe I have ever shared, so please, please don’t let my sighing angst deter you from making and loving it, which you should and will! And you’re like, Haven’t I already made your kale slaw before? That one with the lemon? Or that one with the walnuts? And you have, and those were great, they were. But this one is better. This is the new and improved one (Now with new sudsers that actually gets your clothes clean!) that forces me to confess that the others must have been ever-so-slightly imperfect, because of the perfectness.

I posted, and then deleted, the one with Michael's parmesan-grating middle finger fully extended. I am not currently entirely confident about my sense of humor.

The Ultimate Kale Salad

Makes 1 large bowlful

Total time: 15 minutes

This is, currently, my most-requested recipe. I don’t mean to be immodest, but the number of people here for dinner who tentatively hold their plates out, “Oh, just a little for me,” and make the ew-kale face—and then return for an unseemly amount of seconds? Well, it’s a big number. Raw kale salad is, simply, the greenest-tasting thing I know, and it converts everyone who thinks they don’t like kale, because they’re thinking steamed and stinky, and are then shocked and delighted to be served a bright, fresh tangle of salad.

Also, I’m usually flexible, I know, but I have lots of picky notes here about trying to follow the recipe as written. There is something so utterly balanced about this, with the rich, salty cheese and the crunchy breadcrumbs against the tangy, garlicky greens. You’ll see. Also, this doubles well—so you should double it. (As shown in the photos below, where I am making lots.)

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup fresh (or frozen) breadcrumbs (Note: if you don’t have any, just put a slice or two of any kind of bread in the blender! But maybe don’t use the dusty cardboard-scented kind from a cardboard can, which will not be tasty here.)

1 healthy bunch of very fresh kale (ideally the lacinato or dinosaur variety, which is sweeter and has a better texture here, but any kind is good)

¼ cup olive oil

1 to 2 large cloves of garlic, smashed, peeled, and finely minced or put through a garlic press

2 tablespoons sherry VINEGAR (Not cream sherry, not cooking sherry. Balsamic or white-wine vinegar makes a good, but not ideal, substitute.)

¾ teaspoon kosher salt

2/3 cup freshly grated parmesan

Heat the 1 tablespoon of oil in a smallish pan over medium heat and fry the breadcrumbs, stirring some, and then later more, until they are very brown and toasty, which will take longer than you might imagine (5 or so minutes). Set them aside in a bowl so that they don’t burn in the still-hot pan.

Wash and dry the kale. Now strip the ruffly leaves off the kale's stems by grasping the bottom of each stem and pulling your hand up it forcefully. Discard the stems. Stack and bunch the leaves together, then use a large, very sharp knife to sliver them as fine as you can. Put the slivered kale in a large bowl. (Any thoughts on the stems? I’m starting to think it’s silly to compost them and that I should either a) not bother stripping the leaves or b) find a great kale-stem recipe.)

Now, in a tiny pan, heat the oil over medium heat and fry the garlic in it until fragrant and just on the verge of coloring (which you will need to intuit, given that it won’t have colored yet!). Add the salt and vinegar, and stir for another minute as the vinegar sizzles furiously and the whole thing foams and becomes outrageously fragrant. Pour half the hot dressing over the kale and toss very thoroughly with a pair of tongs. Then get in there with your hands and massage it until the leaves are glossy and dark. Now taste it, and add more dressing as needed. Stir in the cheese and breadcrumbs, taste for salt and vinegar, and serve.