The holiday salad (AKA the Salad with Massaged Kale)

This is where we clean out the garden in preparation for the big break… so expect the unexpected! Why do we massage kale? To soften it and infuse it with the wonderful flavours of olive oil and lemon. Also we recently discovered the delicious crunchiness of radish pods – if you purposefully let your radish harvest go to seed, you’ll be rewarded with unfeasibly long and spindly branches of delicate flowers complete with the most amazing – and not too hot – pods to eat straight off the plant, or include in your favourite salad. Here’s our version:

Fresh from the garden: The last veggies of the year…
Recipe source: Melissa with inspiration from Allison!
Serves: 4 or 24 tastes

• For the dressing: Peel the garlic clove and put it in the mortar with a large pinch of salt. Pound to a paste. Juice the lemon and add the juice to the mortar (without pips) then stir the lot with the teaspoon and scrape it into the large bowl. Stir in the oil and grind some pepper, then whisk the dressing lightly. Wash and spin dry the herbs, pick off the leaves and snip finely with the scissors. Add to the dressing.
• For the massaged kale: Wash the kale and using scissors, strip the leaves from the stalks in small pieces. Dry really well with paper towel, then place in a bowl and squeeze a segment of lemon over with a pinch of flaked salt and a teaspoon of olive oil. Massage all the flavour into the kale for 5 minutes until the kale is soft and juicy.
• Fill up the 2 big bowls with cold water & wash the salad leaves in several changes of water. Spin dry and wipe the bowls dry. Fill the small bowl with water and wash the small garnishing leaves, flowers and radish pods. Reserve them carefully on a piece of paper towel then keep separate in the bowl.
• Wash the beans and snip the stalk-ends off. Wash the bok choy & tomato & chop. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan & add the beans, bok choy & tomato with a pinch of salt, a squeezed clove of garlic & a teaspoon of ground coriander. Cook on high for a few minutes.
• Meanwhile, to poach eggs, fill the deep-sided frying pan 5cm deep with water and bring to a simmer. Fill the large bowl with cold water. Carefully crack each egg into a small bowl without breaking it and then carefully slide into the water. Let the pan sit for 4 minutes before removing each egg into the bowl of cold water with a slotted spoon and reserving until needed.
• Add the salad leaves to the bowl with the herbs and the dressing. Gently turn the leaves in the dressing using a clean hand without squishing the leaves.
• Pile up the dressed leaves into the serving bowls, carefully drain an egg and place in each bowl with the massaged kale, beans, bok choy, garnishing petals, leaves & pods, & serve immediately.