As with all (admittedly) faddish food trends, there is a reason we all got hype about kale in the first place, and that is because it is baaaaaasically lettuce, except where lettuce has zero nutrients or anything positive going for it except crunch, kale has mega nutrients AND is crunchy. Now, don't ask me WHAT nutrients, because I don't know and don't care, and don't pretend you know or care either. But nutrients. So that we feel great about ourselves, because really, why else? (Health... okay, fine.)
So, cool, anyone who is reading is still on board with kale and ready to straight up substitute it into a classic Caesar salad, which we all know is a salad in name only because it is far too tasty and fatty to really be a salad UNLESS, you swap out the lettuce with kale and then blammo! Nutritious AND delicious.
I saw this Smoky Kale Caesar salad on Shutterbean a few weeks ago and if Shutterbean is not on your daily or weekly read list, then why don't you pause for a sec and go bookmark it real quick and then add into your calendar to send me a thank-you note in about a week when you realize it is the best bookmarking decision you made since this.
I'll admit, with this particular recipe, I came for the pretty kale pics and stayed for the homemade croutons. If you haven't made your own croutons, this recipe breaks it down awesome-style and makes you into every friend's new BEST friend on account of how awesome you will be bringing it to the next year of parties. (Salad parties, I guess? OR SOUP. Croutons, so versatile.) Speaking of best friends, I first made my own croutons with my BFF and she does hers even more deliciously by frying them up in a pan, but this is not that this time, but for sure you could do that instead of the oven prep I SWEAR I AM GETTING TO.
Okay, we'll get to the salad part of this salad later (spoiler alert: it is literally just cutting up kale), but first let's crouton. The verb.
Anyone who has eaten shitty store-bought tiny baby rock croutons and still been like "Oh, ew! No, waaaaaaait, even this is very delicious" knows you can use any bread (I see you with your Wonderbread, Pepperidge Farm) for croutons. That said, hearty breads are the best. Tracy (we're on a first name basis, I guess? But also, I don't know her last name because, The Internet) over at Shutterbean says "country bread", and since I was already feeling smug about my good kale intentions, I went for the gold (also, hey, Olympics! but okay, they've been a little bit terrible, no? We'll talk later) and did "multigrain country bread". Feeling better about yourself because you use multigrain bread may not be the most sustainable form of self-esteem but it is A form of self-esteem, so there.
If you're wondering, have we even started preparing any food yet? The answer is no. We have not. Let's do that now.
Tear up that country bread. Or, I know I was mean about Wonderbread earlier but, really whatever bread you have is fine (but do you seriously buy Wonderbread? We're adults), because these are going to turn out great no matter what. As with all things I do, I was not very uniform about my tearing. I hope you let that give you license to also not be too perfect about it. But if not, maybe you need to cut instead of tear these and bust out a ruler and find that they're mostly 1"x1", aka bite-sized. I'm making fun of you. Don't do that.
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| All those little multigrains make this exceptionally photogenic. |
(My girl) Tracy says to lay this out on the baking sheet now, but I made an executive decision to put the bread in the bowl and oil and season there so I could shake it all up. I have a notoriously shaky irregular hand with oil pouring, so for me the bowl-and-shake method (tm) works best. Also, it's fun to shake. Shake what, you ask? That's right, I didn't say. Olive oil (however much, but like, not too much, be reasonable about it. Soggy croutons are, in fact, not croutons) and then a mix of thyme, oregano, basil, salt, and pepper. Or whatever you have. They're croutons. We've already overthought them.
Shake, shake, shake, then pour onto a (parchment papered if you're smart/lazy) baking tray and pop in your (already pre-heated to 350 because I meant to tell you that) oven for about ten minutes. After ten minutes, shake them around a bit, or manually turn each one over by hand (I actually did that because my Type A-ness takes hold in the kitchen in very inconsistent ways) and return to the oven for about five minutes. Take them out and let them rest on the warm oven for extra crunchiness. Tracy says to use day-old bread, I didn't have the patience for that and am here to report, I think they are still better than okay, but if you want to follow the actual chef, I definitely would not blame you.
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| This is pre-turn, but I'll tell you what. It looked very much the same post-turn. Only a mom would know the difference. A crouton mom. |
Now that we've spent approximately fifty thousand words on croutons, let's talk dressing. We're making a Caesar dressing on account of this is a Caesar salad and without a Caesar dressing, it would just be kale with stale bread on top. Which... yeah, I'd probably still eat that? But this will be better if we make dressing.
Warning: there is something really gross that goes into Caesar dressing that you cannot un-know once you know, so proceed with caution.
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| Ingredient Family Portrait, minus one because there's a gross surprise in store. |
Gather your MANY ingredients.
- 1 tsp red wine vinegar
- 1 tsp lemon juice (mine is not fresh, oh my god, don't judge me)
- 2 cloves of garlic (or ~1tsp of garlic powder which I did
because I just don't have the angelic good nature necessary to make up for my
hands and hair being smelly all week in public)
- 1.5 tsp chili powder (I used cayenne pepper because I
accidentally didn't know the difference)
- 1.5 tsp smoked paprika (I used regular paprika because it seemed
like a spice I would use again, and so now I guess this is technically where my
salad is not going to be "smoky" like Shutterbean's)
- 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 1 egg yolk (which is gross but is TOTALLY NOT EVEN THE GROSSEST
THING)
AND...
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| Let's be honest, probably a lesser king. |
Yes, real Caesar dressing, even that which will be used on kale, requires anchovies. If you're a vegetarian or squeamish, you could leave them out, but don't delude yourself that you're making real Caesar dressing anymore. You're not.
I don't know why I'm getting all indignant about Caesar purity, except probably just because I did dig out four anchovies from this can with MY OWN FINGERS, so I likely just need to justify that the complete disgustingness of that was worth it for authenticity. It totally is, right? Because it was really nasty. But I did at least take a moment to consider how insignificantly microscopic my own anchovy disgust was if compared with someone working at the King Oscar factory filleting and packing these little suckers working hard for the money. Respect.
All these ingredients get blended up either with an immersion blender or if you happen to have received one as a gift approximately eight years ago and carted it between six different apartments and used maybe seven times post-Pesto Phase 2k7, a Magic Bullet. Tracy details the proper order in which to do this, but I obviously ignored that and will probably die of salmonella because did I mention the raw egg yolk? Yeah, we're doing this real-Rocky style. But I think even if I had blended the ingredients in the right order, I might still die, so I'd rather live on the edge while the livin's still good.
Once it's blended, if you happen to have a very precious little jar hanging around, go ahead and put it in that for storage. Otherwise, tupperware will do ya. (But, I need to be real with you, probably will not make your coworkers quite as in awe of your domesticity.)
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| This dressing matches my shirt, which also matches my skin, so yeah, I look like human flu today. |
So, crouton's are done. Dressing is done. I know, I'd be totally fine if we stopped right there and just dunked croutons in dressing all week, but WE HAVE TO HAVE KALE. It's why we're allowed to have raw eggs and so much Parmesan cheese. NUTRIENTS.
I think I got the wrong kind of kale to make it look like Tracy's, but real talk, my grocery store only had one kind of kale, and like I was going to know the difference anyway? But I do think my (unspecified type of) kale required a little more creative cutting than Tracy's. Instead of just trimming off the lower stem and cutting across the remaining stems, I sliced the leaves off of each side of the whole stem before cutting to size, because I'm eating kale, but I don't need to be a martyr about it.
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| It's still kale. What were you expecting? |
Pack that stuff up, bag up those gorgeous croutons, grate some sharp cheddar cheese, get ready to out-cute everyone with your little dressing jar, and you're good to go on happy kaletimes for lunch all week. I tried each part and they were yum, but since this is an assembly-required lunch, I don't know how this tastes all together yet, so maybe terrible, but probably great. Let's assume great.
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