A raw deal for raw kale and a miso salad as redress

Raw kale, softened in miso, lime and sesame oil with sprouts, edamame, apples and radishes. And not a rosy-cheeked influencer in sight.

Raw kale gets a bad press.

I blame the wellness lot.

You know, the sort of implausibly beautiful people who share their equally improbably ‘what I eat in a day’ videos on Instagram. The same people who tell us that ribbons of courgette taste ‘just like pasta’. (Don’t get me wrong, I love courgetti, but it’s not pasta.)

It is the sight of their dewy cheeks and bee-stung lips puckering up as they munch down on a bowl of citrus-massaged kale that makes us, or at least me, want to throw my hands in the air and order a burger.

But this is unfair.

Because, treated correctly, raw kale is delicious. Truly. Savoury, filling, crunchy – it is both crisp and gutsy, welcome in so many salads and slaws. I have written about the raw deal raw kale gets before, and suggested a Summertime salad of raw kale, pickled cherries and crispy butterbeans to change minds.

But, as we turn towards Autumn, and the kale harvest reaches its peak, I feel it is time to find a cold-weather version of that salad and do my bit to reclaim raw kale salads for those of us who don’t do pilates in cashmere.

Growing kale

Incidentally, you might like to know that kale is one of the easiest of the brassica family to grow. Most brassicas are tricksy, the cabbage side of the brassica family (cabbages, sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli etc) particularly so. (Unlike their cousins on the other side – radishes, mustards etc - which romp away merrily.) Kale falls into this cabbage branch, but is not nearly as susceptible to the problems that beset its relatives.

Sow between March and May in modules and plant out the seedlings anytime from May onwards. They are frost hardly, for the most part. Stake to prevent them falling over as they grow and net against pigeons and cabbage-white butterflies.

Unlike cabbages etc, I find them unaffected by wind-rock and far hardier to drought. Because they are basically ‘cut and come again’ and do not heart up (like sprouts or cabbages), there is no risk of them ‘blowing’ (not forming a solid heart) or of the single-headed one-shot-only harvest failing. And if they do suffer a caterpillar attack, you can simply remove the affected leaves and more will grow (not an option should the caterpillars infiltrate a broccoli crown).

So, whilst my red cabbages are holy and my purple sprouting broccoli has been entirely lost to pests, the kale and cavolo nero are ready to pick. Perfect for a raw salad…

Miso kale salad

I have heard it said that miso is just a faddy way of adding salt. But in this case, it’s not the salt we need but the mushroomy funkiness that helps mellow the sulphurous tang which people sometimes object to in brassicas. Serve alone or with shredded chicken, maybe some noodles, depending on how wholesome you feel.

Serves 1, or 2 as a side

• 60g kale or cavolo nero

• 50g edamame, frozen

• 60g sprouts