Warm Salad Greens with Roasted Vegetables.
Who says salads have to be cold and crispy? If you're like me, you probably tend to think of salad as a "summer meal." And there are several pretty logical reasons for that: first and foremost, the classic components of a salad enjoy their peak seasons in the warmer months; and speaking of warmth -- when it's cold outside, I look forward to the steam rising off my dinner plate.
So when tin arrived home from work last night and asked "what's for dinner," I admit that I can't blame her for being less than enthused.
"I was thinking about making a warm salad." -- I tried to take away some of the threatening sting by emphasizing the promise of heat, which probably made it sound like I was going to microwave some iceberg lettuce.
"Hm."
"But I can tell you don't really want that."
"Can't we have potatoes?"
My dinner plans usually go unquestioned, if only because I tend to overreact to criticism and even mere suggestions. But during this Most Romantic of Weeks (both our 1 year + 4 months "anniversary" and Valentine's Day) I was in the mood for giving: and so, somehow, there would be potatoes. In truth, it wasn't a bad suggestion -- I'd already planned to fire up the oven and roast a whole plethora of vegetables to top a plate of warm greens.
I preheated the oven to 450 degrees and got to work.
tin retrieved three small potatoes from our root bowl in the dark pantry closet to add to the four purple carrots I'd already planned. I peeled the carrots and cut them into sticks. As for the potatoes, I simply washed the skins and chopped them into chunks.
On my trip to the grocery store last week, I'd picked up two kohlrabi bulbs. Kohlrabi is great both raw and cooked; related to all-things-that-are-good, the flesh of a kohlrabi is super-juicy with a mildly sweet flavor that tastes something like a cross between a broccoli stem and an apple. While the bulbs may appear to be pretty big, the edible part is actually enclosed by a thick, fibrous, double-layered skin which must first be pared away. To do this, most people use, indeed, a paring knife, but I find that I then tend to cut away more than necessary -- I use a sharp peeler, sometimes going over the surface twice. You'll want to simply remove the tough part. If you are lucky enough to find your kohlrabi bulbs still together with their stems and leaves, you're in luck! The leaves are edible.
I prepared my kohlrabi by first removing the stems & leaves -- I washed them and set them aside. I peeled the kohlrabi bulbs and cut them into chunks -- you'll want to approximate the size of the potato pieces.
I'd wanted to play up the juicy, semi-sweet flavor of the kohlrabi by adding a fruit component -- although I would typically use an apple, I still had an anjou pear leftover from the spreads I made on Tuesday afternoon. (The anjou, as I wrote in my previous post, is perfectly suited for baking, cooking, grilling -- heating, in general.) I washed one pear and cut it into quarters, removing the seeds with a paring knife. I chose to leave the pear in quarters rather than cutting it into pieces so that it would retain some of its hardness -- I planned to cook the potatoes and kohlrabi until they could be easily pierced with a fork.
And into the oven it went -- for about thirty minutes, until, as I said, the vegetables were soft and browned on one side, and the pepper was starting to blacken on the top.
I then prepared a dressing, as it certainly wasn't going to take a full thirty minutes to steam the greens. I began by toasting a tablespoon of poppy seeds (you know the drill -- in a covered skillet for two minutes, until you can smell them). I added the juice of half a lemon, 1/2 teaspoon of lemon zest, and a tablespoon of olive oil, mixed well, and set aside.
I used four different kinds of greens in this salad -- I highly recommend using at least two different types to avoid a sort of bland "mono-texture." To the kohlrabi leaves, I added the leaves of the cherry belle radishes I'd saved from Tuesday's spread-ventures, about 2 cups of frozen spinach, and savoy cabbage. With the knowledge that the first three would wilt and cook down into a very small clump, I chose to keep the savoy in large chunks. I had about half of a head leftover from a week of sandwiches and the pizza -- I cut off the large protruding core/stem and then cut the head into chunks (about 2"x2"). I put all of the greens into a large pot with about 1/2 cup of water, brought to a boil, covered, and turned down to simmer until the liquid was gone (about 10 minutes). At that point, the savoy will still be a bit crispy.
After thirty minutes, it's time to turn off the oven and pull out the pepper -- now removing the seeds will be super easy. Simply cut around & remove the top (close to the stem); cut the pepper into bite-sized pieces. The pear quarters should also be prepared by chopping them into bite-sized pieces.
To serve, I covered half of each dinner plate with the warm greens, piling the vegetables on top and into another quarter of the dinner plate; the potatoes I served separately on their own quarter along with a dollop of soy yoghurt. As for the dressing, I recommend serving it on the side in a bowl and allowing each dinner companion to help himself -- but make sure that a drizzle ends up on the salad greens! The lemony kick definitely takes them up a notch.
If the smell alone didn't entirely suffice, the first bite of this salad put all of tin's doubts to rest -- well, I admit, she did get that potato she wanted. But hey, life is about compromises.
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