Warm Salad of Roasted Kale, Coconut, and Tomatoes from ‘A Modern Way To Eat’
Photograph by Brian Ferry
From Yahoo Food’s Cookbook of the Week: A Modern Way To Eat by Anna Jones
Warm Salad of Roasted Kale, Coconut, and Tomatoes
Serves 4
Roasted kale is a revelation. Here I’ve paired it with sweet roasted tomatoes, coconut, and a quick miso dressing. Roasting this wonderful brassica gives a deep savory flavor and an amazing crunchy texture, not too far away from the Chinese restaurant crispy seaweed of my childhood.
During the winter months, I eat kale most days. I love its minerally sweetness. It’s good roasted, sautéed, steamed, blanched, slow-baked to a crisp, and even eaten raw (see page 12 4). It’s a super-hardy plant with bubbly looking fronds that provide us with some green freshness when all the other greens are taking the winter off. The most common kale is curly kale, and it’s the one found in most grocers and supermarkets, but deep green dinosaur kale and the majestic purple kale work too.
14 ounces/400 g cherry tomatoes sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Olive oil
2 unwaxed limes
1 head of green or purple kale (about 7 ounces/200 g), stalks removed, leaves roughly torn into bite-size pieces
Handful of unsweetened shaved or dried coconut
1 tablespoon soy sauce or tamari
For the dressing:
a thumb-size piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
1 tablespoon white miso paste
1 tablespoon tahini
1 tablespoon honey or agave syrup
1 tablespoon coconut or olive oil
1 red chile, finely chopped
Preheat your oven to 425°F/220°C.
Halve the tomatoes and place them on a baking tray with some salt and pepper, a good drizzle of olive oil, the zest of both limes, and the juice of one. Roast for 20 minutes until blistered and golden.
Next, pile the kale on to a baking tray with the coconut. Pour over the soy sauce and toss well until everything is coated. Roast in the oven with the tomatoes for the last 5 to 10 minutes of their cooking time, until crisp.
Meanwhile, mix all the dressing ingredients together in a bowl with the
juice of the second lime. Taste and add a little more seasoning or lime juice if needed, letting your taste buds guide you—remember the dressing will be less punchy once it hits the salad. Pull the kale and tomatoes out of the oven and transfer to a big bowl. Toss with the miso dressing, adding a little at a time and tasting as you go, and serve still warm.
Reprinted with permission from A Modern Way To Eat by Anna Jones (Ten Speed Press).
More hearty salad recipes:
This Kale and Farro Salad Is Chock Full of Nutrients
What Meat? This Salad Will Steal the Show at Your Next Barbecue
