Ben’s Summer Kale Pasta Salad
Overview
This is the perfect summer salad recipe that I found from Ben Mims who is a cooking columnist for LA Times Food. My cousin Steffen wanted to get outside and grill since the weather here in Seattle started to get a bit warmer and by warmer I mean 72 degrees (Lol). He’s quite a grill master when it comes to grilling meats on the BBQ. I was trying to find a more well-rounded salad that was going to accompany his grilled chicken without having too many things on the plate. So I turned to this Kale Pasta Salad that I saw on Ben’s Instagram. Lots of veggies and great lemony-shallot dressing. I would suggest bringing this to any summer party, it’ll be a hit, trust me.
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
3 Tablespoons of salt
1 1/4 cups of orzo pasta
1 large bunch of kale, remove stalks and tear into 1 inch pieces (This should measure out to about 4 tight cups)
2 large lemons
6 garlic cloves, peeled
1 large shallot thinly sliced
2 teaspoons of fresh ground pepper
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 cup of cherry tomatoes cut in half
6 breakfast radishes, trimmed and quartered
2 Persian Cucumbers, quartered lengthwise and cut into 1 inch chunks
1 cup finely grated Parmigiano-reggiano
1/2 cup roasted almonds, roughly chopped (For this I use a sandwich bag and mason jar and give it a few hits)
Instructions
1
Get a large pot of water boiling with 2 tablespoons of salt. Add the pasta once it gets boiling and cook al dente for about 10 minutes or whatever the box instructions tell you for al dente. I usually cut it down a minute or two from what the box says or you could taste it too, with al dente you want that slight crunch. Once the pasta is ready, put through a strainer and rinse with cold water until its cooled. Leave in the strainer until your ready to incorporate it into the salad.
2
In the mean-time start cutting up your kale (remove stalks and tear into 1-inch pieces), cherry tomatoes (cut in half), radishes (trimmed and quartered), and cucumbers (quartered lengthwise and cut into 1-inch chunks) and place them in a big salad bowl.
3
Now we can prepare the salad dressing in a separate bowl or a glass liquid measuring cup. I usually use my larger one that goes up to 4 cups, then I can get a good whisking in. Start with zesting your lemons with a Microplane or a small grater. Do the same with your garlic cloves (you could save time by using jarred garlic that’s already purred!). Juice both lemons, about a ½ cup. Make sure you don’t get any lemon seeds in there, wouldn’t want any of our guests to bite down on those now. Add juice to dressing along with your thinly sliced shallot, pepper, and 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon of salt. Whisk in the olive oil.
4
Pour the dressing into your salad bowl and give it a few tosses with your tongs or your hands your choice. Once our salad mixture is evenly coated with the dressing add the cooled orzo and Parmigiano and give her another toss. Taste, if you need more salt and pepper add it until its right for you. Top off with the almonds for each serving. You leave the almonds separate because if you have leftovers you don’t want the almonds to go chewy in the refrigerator. You want those bad boys to crunch!
