Cannellini Salad with Shrimp, Olives, Sun-Dried Tomatoes, and Cavolo Nero

I'm blogging about this salad merely because I would like to remember it. In the course of my life, I have cooked and forgotten so many dishes, many of which I wish I could remember. Every now and then, Ann will show me a photo of a dish and I will look at it and say "That looks good!" to which she will reply, "You cooked this!" I'm afraid those are the hazards of cooking for years on end with a menu that changes nightly. 

Cannellini Salad with Shrimp, Olives, Sun-Dried Tomatoes, and Cavolo Nero

Now that we are in late spring here in Central Oregon, our eating habits are making their usual seasonal shift. During the winter, we frequently have a warm dish of shrimp and white beans. But when the weather turns warm, we crave cooler foods such as salads. This particular salad is along the lines of the warm dish, but everything is cool and it is dressed with a quasi-vinaigrette of lemon juice and olive oil.

This salad is really just a combination of things that I keep on hand all the time in the pantry with a bunch of cavolo nero from the refrigerator, a bunch that really needed to be eaten. You may know cavolo nero, literally "black cabbage" in Italian, by any one of a number of names: lacinato, lacinato kale, dinosaur kale, black kale, Tuscan kale, Tuscan black kale, and so forth. It is one of my favorite leaf vegetables for its great texture and flavor. Like all the sturdy leaf vegetables, it can be served raw, long-braised, or anywhere in between.

I'm giving a recipe below, but please believe me when I say that I didn't measure anything. Salads, like soups, are extremely free-form and almost anything goes.

3 - 15 ounce cans cannellini, drained

1/2 cup diced sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil

3/4 cup pitted Kalamata olives

1/4 cup fresh basil, thinly sliced en chiffonade

juice of one lemon

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon Kosher salt

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 bunch cavolo nero, destemmed and thinly sliced

4 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced

1 pound of medium raw shrimp, peeled and deveined

Place the beans, tomatoes, olives, basil, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and oregano in a salad bowl.

Wilt the cavolo nero in a saute pan with olive oil and the sliced garlic. When the cabbage is wilted, add 1/4 cup of water to the pan and quickly braise the cabbage until all the water is evaporated. Add the cabbage to the salad bowl.

Film the pan with more olive oil and cook the shrimp until they are just done. Season and add to the salad bowl.

Mix all the salad ingredients and adjust as you see fit, adding salt, oregano, lemon juice, or olive oil as needed.

You can serve it at this point, but the flavors will come together better if you let it stand for a half an hour on the counter. It is also delicious having spent a night in the refrigerator.