Kiwi ‘Slaw with Orange and Mint Dressing

Kiwi ‘Slaw Base

We realise that we may be at risk of becoming a salad blog.  Not so much a kitchen as a place for leaf munching.  We are happy enough with this.

Eating salads up here, in the cold hills, is a little like eating a roast turkey dinner on a tropical beach; slightly incongrous, considering the rain is lashing down outside and we’ve been living in a cloud for the summer (what summer?!).  Still, these colourful bowls of goodness bring the sunshine to our table and some much needed colour and vitality to our lives.

The flavours here work wonderfully.  ‘Slaw is so underrated, just because its grated, doesn’t mean it can’t actually be an amazing salad that takes centre stage for a while.  I love the way that slaw absorbs all of the dressing and marinades so well.  It is also the idea stuffer and stacker, due to the grated part. It is easy to handle and won’t topple a sandwich, or stick out all over the place.

The thinking behind this recipe was maximum POW! flavours and colours. It’s a crunchy slaw with a tangy, creamy dress and if you can’t locate a kiwi, stick some pineapple in instead.  Swede is a revelation in salads and must be liberated from it’s ‘granny’ vegetable bracket.  It has a lovely, mellow and sweet flavour when eaten raw and goes great in salads.  It’s also cheap, which is never a bad thing.

The dressing here is quite special and is actually more of a sauce.  The lovely flavours of orange and mint really come through.  It has a rich texture and flavour and coats the slaw beautifully.

This is all put together using the magic of a food processor (they really are magic!  Even if they have a terrible name….process….food….it’s a bit robotic!?)  If you don’t have one, you will have to chop all the dressing bits up very finely and mix together and hand grate the salad.  A little bit more effort, but wow, how you will enjoy the spoils of your toils!

This is enough for one big bowl, you may have some dressing left over, it goes well on most things, even as a dip.

Kiwi ‘Slaw with Orange and Mint Dressing

The Bits

The dressing/sauce – 1/2 cucumber, 1 plump clove of garlic, 1/3 cup evoo (extra virgin olive oil), 1 kiwi (peel and chopped), juice 1/2 lemon, 2 oranges (peeled and chopped, minimal bitter white bits), handful of mint leaves, handful of parsley, 1 teas caraway seeds, 2 teas smoked paprika

Salad – 1/2 swede, 3 carrots, 1 courgette, 1/2 cucumber, 1 kiwi (peeled and chopped into little chunks), 1 big handful sunflower seeds (roasted taste better, but of course aren’t raw), smaller handful of flax seeds

Do It

Make dressing.  Add all ingredients to a food processor and whizz up for a minute of so.  Remove any stringy orange pieces, if we were being very restauranty, you could even strain the dressing.  But we like chunks.

Give the FP a rinse out and put your grating blade on.  Grate the swede, carrot and courgette and then chop up your kiwi and cucumber finely.

Mix all nicely together in a big salad bowl and that’s it!

Serve

Top with a few thin slices of whole kiwi as a nice touch and maybe a sprinkle of seeds and ‘erbs.

We Love It!

It’s the kind of salad that your makes your taste buds and body sing.  The kind of food we like to eat, real ‘soul’ food.  You can feel it doing you some good and its a real looker too.

Foodie Fact 

Kiwis are your vitamin C friend.  Just one of these emerald delights has 120% of your daily ‘C’ requirement.  Scientist cannot figure it out, but kiwis protect our DNA, making us less likely to develop illness.  If that wasn’t enough goodness, these little beauties are also full of dietary fibre.  They also look very cool.