Kani Kale Corn Salad Recipe

Kani Kale Corn Salad

Kani Kale Corn. Don’t you love the alliteration? This salad is one of the most exciting celebrations of glorious summer foods, starring fresh corn. Please do not substitue frozen, or worse, canned corn, as fresh corn is everything in this dish.

Learning to Love Kale

I suspect many people eat kale somewhat out of duty, because it is so good for you. But what would it take to just love it because it is so delicious? It really pays to be best of friends with kale, because unlike many other salad leaves, kale leaves are so sturdy you can eat a kale salad even the next day.

Mini Crash Course on How to Use Kale to Best Advantage

• Whether you buy a whole bunch or a packaged pre-rinsed bag, first thing to do is get rid of the ribs. The ribs are way too hard to eat. Many restaurants serving kale salad leave the ribs in, which makes eating kale much more labor intensive and much less pleasurable. So: separate the leaves from the ribs in one easy stripping motion, and discard the ribs.
• Chop the leaves into bite size pieces. Can I interest you in this nifty little manual food chopper gizmo, which makes cutting kale leaves, onions, cucumbers, radishes, carrots etc a pleasure? Israeli salad in a jiffy! Perfect for last minute Shabbat salad prep: you just pull the magic string on the cover and it activates the blades in the bottom. Cutting kale will work beautifully.
• Rub the leaves thoroughly in a little oil. It’s called massaging and sounds vaguely hedonistic, but in fact all you’re doing is softening the leaves and making them more pliant. It takes only a minute, well worth the time. You can even store massaged kale leaves for the next couple days!

What is Kani?

Kani usually refers to imitation – mock – crab. It is prepared with white fish pressed into sticks or chunks originally for Japanese-style cooking. As far as imitations go, I find kani pretty decent, as it is almost all fish, with some starch to hold it together and a . Believe it or not, not only Kosher Keepers look for mock crab. Many people shun seafood and are happy to find good imitations on the market.
Kani is incredibly versatile, from salads to soups to pasta. Separate the sticks or the chunks into strands easily with your fingers.

Seaweed

My idea is to make this Kale Kani Corn salad as “fishy” as possible, and seaweed provides that briny taste that smells of the ocean, even though seaweed is not fish but algae. If you don’t have it on hand, keep going: it is really good but not essential in this dish.

Ingredients

Salad

• 1/2 cup dry seaweed (easy to find in health food stores. I used wakame, but any kind will work)
• 4 cups kale leaves, all ribs removed, cut small, thoroughly rubbed with 2 tbs olive oil.
• 2 ears corn, shucked (fresh corn is everything in this dish; don’t settle for canned or frozen)
• 8-10 sticks or chunks Kani, separated into strands
• 5-6 large radishes, sliced thin
• 2 small Persian cucumbers,
• 5 scallions, thinly sliced
• 5-6 sprigs cilantro, minced
• 1/2 cup roasted peanuts, crushed into small pieces

Dressing

• 3 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
• 3 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 3-4 tablespoons Tamari (or 1-2 Tbsp Red Boat fish sauce
• 1” piece ginger, minced
• 1-2 Tbsp sriracha

Instructions