How To Strip Kale Like Martha Stewart Using A Slotted Spoon
Martha Stewart has been sharing time-saving kitchen hacks long before TikTok ever existed. On her cooking show, she's previously shared unconventional tips like how to peel garlic with two mixing bowls and how to cut herbs twice as fast by using two knives. When it comes to stripping kale, the entrepreneur and lifestyle personality has another equally effective shortcut.
As Stewart demonstrated in a video on TikTok, she separates the stems from the leaves simply by using a slotted spoon — a type of serving spoon that has slots or holes in it. Though technically designed for retrieving foods from frying oil, sauces, and broths, Stewart says that slotted spoons are just as useful for prepping kale. All you have to do is stick the stem through one of the holes, and pull it out the other side. This ends up being a lot faster than the traditional way of stripping kale, because instead of using a knife to slice along either side of the stem, Stewart's hack accomplishes the same thing in one swift motion.
What you can use in place of a slotted spoon
In Martha Stewart's viral TikTok, she uses a slotted spoon that has fairly small holes, and she's also working with baby kale. But if you were to attempt to do this with full grown kale that has thicker stems, it just wouldn't work. Luckily, Stewart has a hack for that, too.
Her kale salad recipe calls for large Tuscan kale, and in a Facebook video, she shared that instead of using a slotted spoon, she just grabs any spoon she can find that has a hole at the end of the handle. The hole at the end of a serving spoon is usually meant for hanging it on a hook or utensil rack, but for Stewart it works for stripping Tuscan kale. If you don't have either a slotted spoon or one with a hole that fits your kale stems, you can also use a cheese plane or a grater that has one built into it.
Is stripping kale really necessary?
Martha Stewart has shared many compelling kale recipes through the years, and hardly any of them use the stems. In fact, when instructing how to properly prepare kale on her series "Martha Stewart's Cooking School," she actually specified removing them. But the truth is, this step isn't always necessary. Kale stems tend to be tough and bitter, but that's typically only when they're left raw. They aren't inedible, and if you find them too crunchy when raw, you can easily tenderize them by blanching them.
The best time to use Martha Stewart's slotted spoon hack is when the kale you're cooking with has thick, noticeably fibrous stems. Even though Stewart also strips baby kale (as seen on her TikTok) the stems aren't nearly as tough as other varieties, so you could technically skip the stripping if you're making something like a baby kale and goat cheese salad. However, it's all a matter of preference, so if you just prefer to remove the stems, Stewart's hack can definitely speed along the process.