Recipe 14: Nutty Kale Salad

The last salad of the book! I’ve been spending more money than I should have been these days so this recipe really tested me from a penny-pinching perspective, what a way to finish.

The Shopping Experience

The recipe called for mixed coloured kale but I decided to only use green kale because I didn’t want to have to buy two different bunches of kale; it’s just too inconvenient and expensive to justify. None of my local grocery stores cared a combined bunch or bag of mixed coloured kale. I also decided on buying pre-shredded Parmesan cheese for price reasons as well since a full block of Parmesan was double the price. Besides, my bagged Parmesan was Parmigiano-Reggiano from Italy so it should be an adequate replacement.

Blanched hazelnuts were surprisingly easy to find as they are a bit “niche” but one of my usual stores carried them. Thank goodness because I could not handle the idea of attempting to blanche my own hazelnuts.

In general, I was reluctant to buy buttermilk because I have no idea what to do with it outside of this recipe and the smallest container it comes in is a pint. I’ll have to look up a recipe for buttermilk pancakes or buttermilk fried chicken or something.

The Cooking Experience

This salad must have been really boring to cook or I was really in a rush to eat because I didn’t make any notes about cooking it whatsoever. From what I remember, I didn’t run into any troubles; specifically, the hazelnuts were really easy to slice and I zested the lemon using one side of a box grater. Not ideal but it worked without a hitch.

The Eating Experience

I was pretty disappointed by this recipe overall. It’s a shame because this, as I mentioned off the top, is the last salad in the cookbook. The parm, kale, and lemon all pointed to a very tasty salad but the only thing I liked was the dressing and hazelnuts. I think the kale would have been better sautéed or something so it wouldn’t be as hard/fibrous. I would have also like a bit more diversity in flavour as the kale overpowered its co-star, the hazelnuts.

Final Thoughts

This recipe left me disappointed but I’m hopeful about the new chapter of pasta recipes to come. It’s pretty difficult to ruin a pasta, so hopefully, I don’t ruin one! 

I'll be writing a post with my final thoughts on all the salads so look out for that one coming out tomorrow!

Total estimated cook time: 14 minutes

Total actual cook time: 31 minutes