Raw Kale Salad

I know I am not the only one with lots of dark greens growing in abundance. I notice that mine tend to sit there for a long while - which is fine, they will last long into the fall - but I think it is because I keep thinking I need to eat them cooked. And as it turns out, this summer is not my summer for cooked greens. I try to eat them along with breakfast or dinner and I am not into it. I'm done after a few bites, and even those seem a bit forceful. But raw greens - that is a different story!


I looked up some basic raw kale recipes, and settled on Kale Salad with Pecorino and Lemon. The basic difference to eating raw kale versus cooked seems to be it needs to marinate for an hour or more to soften it up a bit. It actually felt like I was making a version of pesto when I made this salad, but without the food processor...similar smells. Which is maybe why I ended up adding in some roasted pistachios too. It was the only nut I had, though had I seen this before sticking them in the oven, I would have brined them first. Yum!


In the end, I also decided to use a different green than kale (my kale is way small, not enough sun)...I used Mustard Spinach Komatsuma - a new green I planted this year (which is delicious btw). It is not as tough as kale - more spinach-y. (That link has some recipe suggestions, including a kimchi that I am intrigued by.) Anyhow - the salad turned out amazing! The flavor is really nice - the lemon somehow compliments the slight bitter taste of the greens. I think the nuts add a really nice crunch to the salad too. These greens really sucked up the lemon and olive oil, and I wonder if kale would be a little less absorbent. I actually ended up using the juice of just one lemon and only 1/4 c. olive oil - and that was plenty for the komatsuna. Raw greens!