I found a bunch of almost wilted kale in the fridge on the other day. I bought it to juice but I was too lazy to make juice and totally forgot about it. (^_^;) I didn’t want to throw it away so I put something together quickly with what I had. It turned out to be pretty good so it became one of my recipes.
These are all ingredients you need – kale, umeboshi, ground toasted sesame seeds (goma), avocado and lemon. It’s super quick to put together.
What makes it Japanese-style is umeboshi and goma (sesame seeds). If you don’t have umeboshi, you can omit it and add something salty instead (e.g. miso, soy sauce, salt).
I’ll show the step-by-step instructions but the shorter version of the recipe and the list of ingredients are available at the bottom of this blog post. Let’s begin!
- Remove stem from kale and chop leaves into your desired size
The picture below is the leaves of only two stems of kale.
2. Steam kale leaves for 2-3 minutes and remove them from heat. Gently squeeze excess water out.
After steaming, I can put the whole bunch of kale on the same plate which only could fit two stems of raw kale. Amazing!
3. Finely chop umeboshi. It becomes like paste
4. Chop avocado into your desired size
5. When kale is no longer hot (warm is okay), squeeze lemon over it and mix in umeboshi and sesame seeds. I recommend that you use toasted sesame seeds. Add as much as you like. The more sesame seeds, the better! Add chopped avocado at last and toss everything.
It’s simple but is a full of flavor. You can taste the bitterness of kale, the sourness of umeboshi and lemon, creamy avocado and nutty sesame seeds. When steamed, kale shrinks so much so I ended up eating the whole bunch of kale! You can use raw kale if you are okay with eating raw kale. I can’t digest raw kale well so I like to steam it quickly.
I hope you give a try!
- 1 bunch kale
- ½ medium or 1 large umeboshi
- 2-3 tablespoons ground toasted sesame seeds (goma)
- 1 avocado
- ½ small or ¼ large lemon
- Remove stem of kale and chop leaves into your desired size
- Steam kale leaves for 2-3 minutes and remove them from the heat. Gently squeeze excess water out.
- Finely chop umeboshi
- Chop avocado into your desired size
- Mix everything. Add avocado at the last.
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