Kalettes – your new hybrid between Kale and Brussels Sprouts – Foodies Cucina

Kalettes? – Someone may wonder what this is.

Kalettes are a new vegetable variety, a hybrid between Kale and Brussels Sprouts. It was developped by a seed company in the UK and has been in the market for over 15 years. When we first heard of this hybrid variety, Tina wondered if this is a GMO. After reading many news, wiki and journal papers, I can now confirm that Kalette is created with traditional hybridisation process and it is non-GMO.

I saw them in Coles a few weeks back and wondered what the flavour of this vegetable is. To be honest, I was never a fan of both Kale and Brussels Sprouts. After tasting Brussels Sprouts 15 years ago for the first time, this vegetable has been on the bottom of my preferred veges. Over the years, I tried it at different restaurants but none of them has satisfied my appetite.

So, I do wonder how would Kalette taste. I was reached by EastBrook Farm, a SA producer of Kalettes. To support local produces and discover the true flavour of the vegetables, we decided to go on an adventurous culinary tour with the vegetable.

Here you go – Kalettes!

The vegetable is high in vitamins and has nutty and sweet flavour on the palette when eating raw. I am sure when making salad, this would be the wow factor for some of your guest. However, I decided to take the adventure further to pair it with food to see what can be created.

The first food I paired with was lamb roll from the butcher with my stuffing of pistachio. The Kalettes are sprinkled on the side of the lamb roast. Absolutely fascinating! The top bit is like Kale and once roasted, it is crispy and very tasty 🙂 The crunchiness promoted the flavour of the lamb and all juices from the lamb are soaked in the centre of the vegetable. Yummo!

The second dish I tried is to make a salad with the Kalettes but a cooked one. Here you go – roasted kalettes and marinated octopus salad.

This dish is quite simple to make.

Get some good sized big octopus and cook in water until tender.
In sauce pan, add white wine vinegar (1/4 of the sauce pan), water(1/4 of the sauce pan), minced garlic and ginger (2 tea spoon), coriander seed, thyme and rosemary and cook the octopus in for another 10 mins.
Store the octopus in a jar with the juice. Let it cool and seal with olive oil for 1 week in fridge.
A handful of kalettes, seasoned with salt and pepper. Add a drizzle of olive oil and roast until crispy.
Get the octopus out of the fridge and mix well with the roasted crispy kalettes. Use the juice that preserved the octopus as a vinaigrette. Give it a generous amount of juices 🙂
Plate it up and serve!

The flavour of the dish was superb! With the decent nutty flavour, the kalettes complemented the octopus well. The sourish vinaigrette took away the bitterness of the vegetable from its centre and left it with a great aromatic fragrance on palette. Absolutely love it!

To take on further adventure, I decided to preserve the vegetable. Italians say “fresh is the best, preserved is better“. I agree with it. Here in Australia, people does not eat much of the preserved food as produce are fresh and readily available, but preserving food is a great fun. I previously had four recipes on preserving food for anitpasto dishes. This time, the preserved kalettees are for an easy Asian stir fry.

To preserve the kalettes, add them to a jar. Then in a sauce pan, mix water, salt (3-4 table spoons) and white wine vinegar (1/4 of the content) and bring to boil. After cooled, add the content to the kalettes and preserve for a week in normal environment before eating. The kalettes will emit some pinkish colours and the end product looks like this.

To cook, cut pepperoni sticks into bite size and stir fry until nearly cooked. Then add the preserved kalettes. Stir until soft and cooked. NO salt is needed! To lift up the flavour, add two table spoons of teriyaki sauce.

It tastes so good with a bowl of rice! Do try it.

So, if you are curious with what you can do with kalettes or if you are similar to me with food adventures, head down to your local market and ask some SA produced Kalettes from EastBrook. You will be amazed with the level of satisfactions you get.

Until next post, have a great time!