A few weeks ago I told you about the salad queen that lives next door. The one that made the red quinoa, sweet potato and balsamic roasted beetroot salad. Well, this side dish is another one of her fab creations that was concocted in a flash one afternoon in Lagos.
I cannot remember when last I wanted to eat a side dish that is meant for many guests, by myself. It is SO enjoyable. When I tested the recipe I literally ate the whole bowl for dinner and was craving it again the next day.
So, this side dish takes about 15 minutes to prepare. You can make it instantaneously just before you serve dinner.
I have seen a few kale varieties and for this specific recipe I suggest you use curly kale and not the flat leaf kale, because it will not crisp up very well. I also suggest that you rather chop up too much kale than too little, as it loses a lot of volume during the cooking process.
This recipe has no exact measurements, because it is easily adaptable to the number of mouths you want to feed. But as I mentioned, rather cook a big bag of kale than ending up with only few crispy kale leaves per person. You need to be watching the oven as the kale might burn if you don’t mix the leaves often.
A great tip that Willemien also gave me was that she uses a fork to mix up the tahini in the jar and then drizzles it over the kale. It really works!
Ingredients
- Curly Kale
- Olive Oil
- Salt
- Pepper
- A Lemon
- Tahini
- Toasted Sesame Seeds (for garnish)
Instructions
- Set the oven to grill.
- Rinse the kale and make sure there is no soil in-between the leaves.
- Cut the stalks out of the kale.
- Cut the leaves into smaller pieces - about 3 cm between cuts.
- Scatter the kales pieces on an oven-proof dish.
- Drizzle with olive oil, freshly ground salt and pepper and mix with tongs to make sure the oil covers all of the leaves.
- Bake in the oven, turning every few minutes to make sure all sides of the leaves get crispy.
- Once the leaves are almost completely crispy all over and slightly brown, drizzle with freshly squeezed lemon juice and tahini.
- Bake for a few more minutes until the tahini turns slightly brown and crispy.
- Scatter with toasted sesame seeds before serving.
- Best served immediately.