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We are friends who love making simple food look beautiful. We hope our recipes will inspire you to get into the kitchen this season. Aoife McElwain works in front of the camera writing the recipes and styling the food, while Mark Duggan works behind the camera to make sure it all looks as delicious as possible. We work with editors such as Killian Broderick and music supervisors like Nialler9 to make sure that our finished videos look and sound as smart as possible. We work with brands like Glenisk and Folláin to help them create delicious video content for their online platforms. When we're not making videos, we write a weekly column called Speedy Suppers on Thursdays in The Irish Independent. Aoife writes the recipes and styles the food while Mark takes the photographs.  

21 Sep kale + hazelnut salad

Posted at 17:13h in lunch, recipes, supper by

Did you know that kale has its own PR machine? British born but New York based Oberon Sinclair runs the very cool transatlantic agency My Young Auntie, and Sinclair counted Chris Blackwell of Island Records and Vivienne Westwood as past clients. In 2012, she was hired by the American Kale Association to shed this vegetable’s stuffy rep. She started by using her connections in New York’s dining scene to get kale seen on the best plates in town. Pretty soon, everyone was talking about kale – Pinterest seemed to be full of this green giant. Even Beyonce got swept up in the glamour, donning a kale sweatshirt to proclaim her love. We love this story (and wonder what vegetable will get the Sinclair treatment next) and we also love kale. Even if it is so 2013.

kale + hazelnut salad

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We are big fans of Oxmantown café at 16 Mary’s Abbey just off Capel Street in Dublin 1. They’ve become famed for their sandwiches (the ham hock and grilled cheese is a personal favourite) but it’s their salads that we consider the quiet heroes of this unassuming eatery. We became obsessed with their salad of kale, hazelnut, roasted Jerusalem artichokes and Parmesan and started making our own version. Theirs trumps ours, however, and not just because of the Jerusalem artichokes. Find out more about them at http://www.oxmantowndublin.com/.

Ingredients (serves 4)

200g of kale

1 tablespoon of rapeseed (or olive) oil

Juice of ½ a lemon

Salt

Pepper

Large handful of hazelnuts

100g of feta

Method

1. Remove the kale leaves from the stalks. Discard the stalks and slice the kale leaves into bite-sized chunks. Wash the leaves really well before transferring them to a mixing bowl.

2. Add the rapeseed oil and the juice of ½ a lemon to the kale leaves. Use your hands to rub the oil and lemon juice into the leaves. Do this for about five minutes until the leaves soften. (This is a technique one of my favourite Irish food writers, Dorcas Barry, refers to as “massaging” the kale. Find out more about Dorcas and her kale advocacy at http://dorcasbarry.com/.

3. Meanwhile, halve the hazelnuts and put into a dry frying pan. Toast the hazelnuts for a few minutes over a medium heat, being careful not to burn them. Remove from the heat and set aside.

4. Divide the massaged kale between serving bowls. Top with a handful of toasted hazelnuts and a good crumbling of feta and serve with an extra drizzling of rapeseed (or olive) oil.

This recipe first appeared in Insider Magazine in The Irish Independent on September 18th 

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