Purple kohlrabi is the only member of the cabbage family that survived the slug attacks in our gardens in spring. Luckily, because we love kohlrabi, especially in a salad when it’s eaten young and raw. In case you have never tasted kohlrabi, it tastes much like a cabbage. A bit fresher maybe with a bit of a punch. And therefore it’s a really good ingredient for a salad. That’s how we ate it yesterday. With a pinch of this and a pinch of that. Finished off with some leftovers. When I was photographing this Puff pastry purple kohlrabi pear meal salad, I decided that I would definitely serve this salad if I was running a restaurant (which I’m not). It’s pretty, easy, healthy and tasty!

 

What I do want to mention before I type up a long list of ingredients later in this post: feel free to replace one item by something else that you have at home. There are no holy ingredients in this salad. I just go out into the garden and pick things that I think fit well together and then I combine them with things that I still have lying in the fridge. I don’t expect you all to grow cucamelons at home. But I’m sure you can find a regular cucumber somewhere. You get what I mean right?

So now let me tell you quickly how I made this meal salad. Quickly, because it was quick, but also because my hands are still not recovered. No worries though, I’m recovering well, but only because I’m doing my utmost best not to type too much (or do anything else that hurts my thumbs). Only patience can bring me to the finish this time.

 

Ingredients (2p, but you can also make smaller portions as a starter for more people):

  • one sheet of puff pastry
  • 1 kohlrabi (thinly sliced)
  • 2 pears (thinly sliced)
  • a hand full of rocket salad
  • edible flowers
  • cucamelons (or a few cucumber slices)
  • apple cider vinegar
  • (wal)nut oil
  • pecans
  • small piece of blue cheese (Bleu du Vercors in my case)
  • olives (Calamata)
  • a few leaves of menthe coq, in english costmary (replace by thyme or marjoram)
  • salt & pepper
  • sesame
  • pumpkin seeds

Yes, I think that’s it.

How to:

First prepare the puff pastry. Preheat an oven at 200 degrees. Now roll out the sheet onto a baking tray and cut it into the shapes you want to serve it in. Leave it on the sheet and make some extra incisions to make it more pretty. Now chop up your herbs (menthe coq) and place it in two spoons of the nut oil. Add some salt and pepper to the mix and then spread it over your puff pastry. Now sprinkle some sesame seeds on top. When done, place it in the warm oven and let it bake-off for 15 minutes or so. Do keep an eye on it.

Now you can start with everything else. Slice and chop everything up. quickly marinate the kohlrabi in two spoons of apple cider vinegar. When that’s done and the puff pastry is done, you can start building your plate. I used one piece of puff pastry on the bottom of the plate and one on top. In between I layered all the ingredients. Then I topped it off with some small stuff as you can see on the picture. Easy as that. Now you can enjoy!