the perfect kale salad

Speaking of eating local, there are some really great farm to table restaurants in New York. These restaurants either grow their own food on their own farms (typically upstate, but not always- roof top farming is becoming quite popular these days in big cities!), or partner with small local farms, bakeries, breweries, etc., in order to get their food. While these restaurants are small in number, they are big in taste. Like I've said before (and repeated multiple times in the post above), eating local, fresh ingredients can't be beat.

One of my favorite farm to table restaurants in the city is called Northern Spy, in the East Village. They do amazing lunch, dinner, and brunch. All of their food is seriously outstanding, with a menu built around "seasonality and quality", they use locally grown, raised, caught, and crafted products. They work closely with those who provide them food, and their efforts are greatly rewarded in the quality of their dishes. My friends and I have had many a meal here, especially brunch. While their biscuits with home-made apple butter are seriously out of this world, my favorite thing to get here is the Kale salad (and with brunch, I get it with two eggs on top). I know what you might be thinking, Kale salad? And I know, I'm a pretty over zealous fan of kale, however, this salad is really amazing. It is one of the first kale dishes that truly turned me on to the beauty of this vegetable. During the winter the salad has squash, but during the summer it is replaced by sweet potato. Either way, the salad is amazing, and every time my friends and I go, we discuss how awesome it would be to make it at home. So we did. Check out our version of the most amazing kale salad ever. While it doesn't exactly stack up to the perfection at Northern Spy, we got pretty close, and nothing was left at the bottom of our bowls when we were finished.

The Perfect Kale Salad

1 medium sweet potato, cubed into 1/4 inch cubes
1 tsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
1 large head of kale, with the leaves removed from the stems and shredded
1/3 cup roasted whole almonds (we cut them so they ended up being halves and thirds of almonds)
1/3 cup pecorino cheese (any yummy cheese of your choosing would be great here), cubed into 1/4 inch cubes
1 good splash of lemon juice
1 good splash white balsamic
1 small splash olive oil

local

fresh

delicious

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees
On a baking sheet lined with tin foil, toss the sweet potato with salt and pepper, before putting in the oven and baking for around 30 minute or until the potato starts to caramelize. Toss the cubes once about halfway through roasting
Place the Kale in a bowl and dress with lemon juice, white balsamic, and olive oil. Massage the dressing into the Kale for about 30 seconds
Add the cheese and nuts into the salad, adding the sweet potato last after it is cooled
Toss to combine, and enjoy!

yum.