Cabbage and Almond Slaw

I’m coming at you today with THE BEST COLESLAW! It’s actually a riff on a show stopping salad served at a Sydney restaurant called Buzo. Their salad is a pile of finely sliced coleslaw, pecorino, pine nuts and marsala soaked raisins. It’s so good. It is, I think, the best dish they serve, or at least it was when I went there a few years ago.

So how could you improve on this perfect salad? The truth is you can’t  but my version offers something more doable at home. Not that the orginal is tricky. It’s just that I don’t always have golden raisins, masarla, pecorino and pinenutes lying around. What I do always have are flaked almonds and parmesan. So with these, I make my own stingy version.

It’s a lot cheesier than your average coleslaw but that, along with the crunchy flake of the almonds, is the whole appeal. I love this at Christmas with the ham and turkey but it’s good all year long. The one above was served in homage to the baked potato carts at country town shows, atop a baked potato.

Cabbage and Almond Slaw

Adapted from a recipe by James Hird and Todd Garratt of Buzo
1/2 a savoy cabbage, finely grated(I use a mandolin for this)
100g flaked almonds, toasted
80g parmesan, finely grated
3 cups of parsley leaves, plus a few extra for garnish
2 slices of sourdough, cut into 5 mm pieces and toasted
1/2 a red onion, finely sliced
For the dressing
2 egg yolks
1-2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar
3 tsp of dijon
1 cup of light olive oil
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons of Greek yoghurt or cream

1. Make the dressing first. Whisk the egg yolks, mustard and vinegar together in a medium sized bowl. Continue to whisk as you very slowly add the oil, drop by drop. When all the oil has been used and it’s nice n’ thick, season, mix the yoghurt in and set aside.
2. Place the cabbage, onion and parsley leaves in a big bowl. Add half of each of the cheese, nuts and breadcrumbs. Toss really well.
3. Pour the dressing over and toss really well again. Top with the remaining nuts, breadcrumbs, cheese and parsley leaves. Serve immediately, you want the bread crumbs good and crunchy!