Kale salad, chocolate cake, more from ‘Smitten Kitchen’

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and spread the pecans on a tray. Toast them for 5 to 10 minutes, tossing them once or twice to make sure they toast evenly. Remove them from the oven, and set them aside to cool.

Wash your kale and let it dry on spread-out kitchen or paper towels. Then, with a knife, remove the rib from each stalk, leaving long strips of kale leaves. Stack the leaves in small batches, roll them tightly the long way, and cut the roll crosswise into thin ribbons. Add the kale ribbons to a large salad bowl.

Thinly slice the radishes, and add them to the bowl. Coarsely chop the pecans and cherries, and add them as well. Crumble the goat cheese over the top. Whisk dressing ingredients together in a small dish, and pour the dressing over the salad. Toss the salad until it is evenly coated with dressing. This salad is great to eat right away, but even better after 20 minutes of tenderizing in the dressing.

Make glaze:

Combine glaze ingredients in a small saucepan and simmer, whisking constantly, for 2 minutes. Set aside.

Make meatloaves:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Tear the bread into chunks and then blend it, in a food processor, into breadcrumbs. Place the breadcrumbs in a large bowl. Add the onion, garlic, celery and carrot to the food processor, and pulse it until they are finely chopped.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Once the skillet is hot, coat the bottom with olive oil, and heat the oil for a minute; add the finely chopped vegetables. Season with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring frequently, until they begin to brown, about 10 to 15 minutes.

Add the vegetables to the large bowl with breadcrumbs, then add the remaining ingredients. Stir the ingredients together with a fork. With wet hands, form the mixture into twelve 3-inch meatballs; each will weigh about 4 ounces.

Bake meatloaves:

Space meatballs so that they are not touching, in a baking dish. Drizzle or brush each meatball with a teaspoon or so of the tomato glaze you made earlier, and bake until cooked through, about 20 minutes. (An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of a cooked meatball will register 160 to 165.)

To serve:

Serve with additional glaze on a bed of brown butter mashed potatoes.

For brown butter mashed potatoes:

Place the potatoes in a medium saucepan, and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil over high heat, and once it’s boiling, reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook for 20 to 30 minutes, depending on your potato size; the potatoes are ready when a paring knife or cake tester can be inserted into the center with little resistance. Drain the potatoes and wipe the pot dry.

Peel the potatoes — I find that holding one in a pot-holdered hand and using a paring knife with the other is easiest. Repeat with remaining potatoes until they are completely peeled. Run the potatoes through a food mill or potato ricer, then return the mashed potatoes to your emptied saucepan. Add browned butter, buttermilk, salt and black pepper to taste. Do your best not to eat it all before guests arrive.

To make cake:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line a 6-inch round springform pan with a circle of parchment paper. Generously butter sides of pan and parchment round.

In a small saucepan, melt your butter over medium heat, stirring for even cooking. After the butter melts, it will then hiss and spatter a bit as the water cooks off, and then fragrant brown bits will form at the bottom of the saucepan. The whole process will take about 3 minutes. Quickly remove from the heat and stir in the chocolate until it is melted and smooth. Cool the chocolate mixture to lukewarm, a process that can be sped up by transferring the mixture from the hot saucepan to a small bowl set in a puddle of cold or ice water. If quick-cooling the chocolate like this, be sure to stir it every minute or two for even cooling.

With an electric mixer, beat egg yolks, brown sugar and vanilla together until the mixture thickens and takes on a, frankly, kind of icky pale-yellow-brown color. Slowly beat in the lukewarm chocolate mixture, and a pretty color will return. The mixture will become very thick but will loosen significantly once we add the egg whites.

Wipe clean, wash and dry your electric beater(s), and beat egg whites and salt in a separate bowl until firm peaks form. Add a pinch of cinnamon, if desired. Stir one-third of egg-white mixture into chocolate mixture. Fold the remaining two-thirds in gently, trying to keep the batter as light as possible. Pour into prepared pan, and bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until it is puffed with a lovely dome on top (which you shouldn’t get too attached to) and a tester or skewer comes out clean (or with just a couple crumbs attached).

To serve:

Let cool on rack for 10 minutes — it will immediately begin to sink in the middle — then run a knife around the cake to make sure it’s not stuck to the pan, and release the springform sides. Let it cool the rest of the way on its base. Once it’s cool, flip out onto a plate or second rack, remove parchment round (if it’s stuck) from the bottom, and flip cake back onto a small plate. To serve, beat whipping cream with granulated sugar until soft peaks form. Dust cake with confectioners’ sugar and dollop with whipped cream and berries.