The Time My Sister Gave Me a Kale Recipe

Something strange has been happening to my sister lately.  In my mind, she’s often still the picky eater she was when we were kids; if a restaurant didn’t have hamburgers or pasta (plain with butter, no sauce), we couldn’t eat there.  But over the past several years her tastes have really expanded.  Routinely she orders things at restaurants or tells me about meals that I can’t believe she’s eating.

And then a couple weeks ago she told me that representatives from the new Whole Foods arriving in her area had visited her work with samples and recipes.  During that visit my sister had made a discovery: she likes kale.  At least, she likes the kale in the salad she tried: Kale, Carrot and Avocado Salad.  So when she came to visit last week she brought the recipe so I could copy it (it didn’t occur to me until I was writing this post that it might be online).

At her urging, I added the recipe to this week’s menu plan.  The recipe is perfect for this time of year; most of the produce ingredients are available at our CSA.  The prep is straightforward, though it takes a few minutes to chop the kale, grate the carrots (I really hate grating things for some reason), and slice the red onion.  Then you massage in the avocado, add citrus juice, sesame seeds and soy sauce and let it sit for about half an hour. 

I served this salad with baked sesame tofu from Wannabe Chef. Though I’ve seen plenty of massaged kale recipes before I’d never actually made one, so I was thrilled when Brian and I  thoroughly enjoyed this dish.  I like how every bite was a little different; the kale forms little pockets of flavor.  Some forkfuls are acidic with lime juice, others are filled with sweet carrots.  Brian initially commented that I’d forgotten to include the avocado because it’s mostly mashed into the kale leaves, but I could tell it was there.  How many servings you get from this recipe will depend on the size of your bunch of kale, but we got about six large ones.  Two of those servings were eaten the following day for lunch and since kale is so hearty, it held up well overnight.

Thanks for the recipe, sis.  I think it’s going to become a frequent flier in my kitchen.  If this is where your tastes are headed, maybe we should keep this recipe exchange going?