The biggest adjustment I've had to make from having the house to myself every day to having a husband around is that somebody expects lunch. A lunch that consists of something more than grazing on the raw carrots and various pickled foods that I so love. I manage but, honestly, I'm not used to it enough yet that noon doesn't creep up on me too fast most days. Today was one of them, and I had two soups in mind when I opened the fridge and saw a foil packet. What's this, I wondered, and unwrapped nearly half a roasted chicken from this past weekend. Chicken salad?, I wondered. But no on the sandwich kind, we lack fresh bread. What about a real salad, I wondered, maybe involving pasta and one of those green bell peppers I got at the farmstand in Everson yesterday. That sounded good, but when I went into the pantry I saw this little bag of walnut sized new potatoes from a local farm. That sounded even better, and I put about 8 of those on to boil while I chopped the green bell pepper with some green onions and put them into a bowl to marinate. For a dressing I went with a vinaigrette enhanced with curry powder, a pinch of red chile flakes and a dollop of sesame oil.
When I went back to the fridge in search of greens (I had thought romaine), I realized I was out of that but had some kale. Well, that's very autumnal, I thought, grabbing a jar of raw walnuts too. I rinsed the kale and removed it from the stems, cutting the greens into a chiffonade. That went in the bowl (but didn't get stirred in), along with the walnut and the chicken which I'd removed from the bones and diced. When the potatoes were done, I drained them and broke them up, hot, right in with the rest of the ingredients and then tossed the lot. The kale turned the green of emeralds and became flexible enough to participate in being molded for presentation.
The result? Not just good, but great. And perhaps: perfect, even. An accidental recipe that's an instant star earning a permanent place in my repertoire made from a suite of ingredients that each brought something important and neccessary to the mixture. Bob swooned over every bite and said, "I want to eat this every day."
If you've never used raw kale in a salad before, you're missing something important about this healthy green, and if you've put it in a salad but just blended it with other lettuces rather than featuring it on its own, then you've really missed the big ticket it's destined for.
The dressing:
2 T of your best EVOO
1.5 T white wine vinegar
1/2 T toasted sesame oil
3/4 tsp curry powder
big pinch of salt
big pinch red chile flakes
The ingredients:
About 1 cup diced leftover roast chicken
about 1/3 c small diced green bell pepper
2 green onions, thinly sliced
one handful chopped raw walnuts
8-10 walnut sized new potatoes, or equivalent
4 leaves kale, removed from stem, chiffonade cut
Boil potatoes in salted water while you prepare the rest of the ingredients. Make the dressing in a medium sized mixing bowl and add the bell pepper and green onion to marinate. Put the other ingredients on top and break in the hot potatoes when they're cooked and drained.