For years, I wondered why my kale salad failed. Literally. Like anyone who's ever tried it, I fell in love with the kale Caesar salad at Barbuto in New York's West Village. I tried to replicate it with my winning Caesar salad dressing, but it wasn't the same. Something about the texture. I rinsed the bandage. I massaged the kale with the dressing. I massaged it in lemon juice and salt and let it sit before adding the dressing. Nothing worked. Nothing gave me the ethereal texture of the Barbuto salad. Then one day, I bothered to ask chef Jonathan Waxman, who happens to be a friend, the most obvious question of all: What kind of kale do you use? “Kale,” he said. “It has to be kale.”
Hallucinatory. Like curly parsley, I had practically ignored the very existence of kale. I moved past its sturdy, curly leaves and headed straight for its flatter, darker, more manageable-looking Tuscan cousin: Tuscan kale (also called lacinato kale, black kale, cavolo nero, and dinosaur kale). But once I tried kale, I understood: those curls, when cut, are what keep the kale from falling into a dense pile. Instead, like the grass in the Easter basket, kale, even when dressed, has volume; There is light and air between the strands, giving the necessary lightness to the robust and intensely flavored leaves.
Also, “massaging” kale is a bit of a misnomer. It's more like squeezing dressing onto kale. This is not a Swedish type aromatherapy massage; We are talking about deep tissue sports massage. Our goal is to break down cell walls here, not ease kale into restful sleep.
