Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Crispy Kale

I ADORE kale. The green, curly leafy stuff you find between the mustard greens, swiss chard and the leeks in your grocers produce section....looks kinda like savoy cabbage leaves, but much darker. It tastes yummy and is really good for you too.

The problem is finding ways to cook it. It's too tough for use in salads and doesn't lend itself well to being boiled. Most of the time, I use it in stir fry recipes, but even those got old of late.

Today, I decided to try something a little different with it. I baked it. Drizzled it with a little cider apple/virgin olive oil vinegrette and shoved it in the oven for half an hour.

The result: crispy kale. It came out crunchy, but light, and with a little salt on it it was dee-lisshh! Even my 'lings ate it!

NM's Deelish crispy kale

I bunch of kale
2tbsp olive oil
2 tsp cider vinegar
salt, to taste.

Heat your oven to 350 degrees and make sure you've got one of the racks at the lowest setting.

Whilst your oven is heating, wash and de-stalk your kale - I treat mine like the stalks are the spine of a book, and I bend the leaves backwards like I'm bending the pages of the book the wrong way. The leaves usually come right off.

Once you've got your leaves off, blot them dry with a paper towel and spread them out on a cookie sheet or on the bottom of a baking pan.

Mix the olive oil and vinegar well, and drizzle it over the kale, tossing the leaves with your hand to coat thoroughly.

Put on the bottom rack of the oven and bake for 10 or 15 mins, then take it out, toss the kale again and back once more for about 5 more mins or until all your kale is crispy.

Once it's nice and crispy, remove from the oven and sprinkle with salt (I use sea salt) to taste. Be careful, you won't need a lot!

Enjoy!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I steam mine then add a dab of butter. may give this a try - variety is always good. Thanks

Amber said...

I never thought about baking it- I usually just blanche it with vinegar and hot peppers. Yum.