Always thinking of the next meal...
The British weather gods have taken pity on its pale-skinned inhabitants down below and decided to send a bit of warmth and sunshine in our direction. Yay! Off comes the men’s shirts (ick!), out comes the barbecue paraphernalia (weeee!) and salads get served somewhere in-between (yum!). This is my entry to the fourth instalment of SnackShots.
Like any human being my personality and behaviour are marked with idiosyncrasies. One of them is when I was a child I used to love growing herbs. Lots of them; from lemon balm to sage. You see, herbs aren’t just any plants. They don’t just stand there looking pretty with a flower or two, but actually have a purpose – good for cooking and your health – and that gave me a great kick. Did I cook? No. Did I eat them? No. Did I water them? Not really, so if our gardener didn’t do it they died, which they all eventually did.
Spring is in the air and what better way to celebrate than with a salad? Fried, warm, cold or in pâtés; I like my versatile chicken liver in all shapes and sizes. Usually I underestimate the richness of this lovely offal and put more on my plate I could ever consume in one sitting. The leftovers tend to be cling filmed and placed in the fridge where I would snack on a piece or two every few hours. Soy and honey is my favourite combination and literally goes with just about everything. When the livers are fried with this sauce it is truly magical and will spruce up any boring salad.
Pecorino doesn’t come cheap and I would have hated to let the leftover chunk in our fridge go to waste. After having made Creamy Pecorino & Lemon Pasta with it, I felt it was time for a change. Looking for a bit of inspiration, I paged through a few Good Food magazines and cookbooks when I came across Gordon Ramsay’s salad. At first I was suspicious. Come on, it’s so basic and eating so much raw onion will make me cry for the rest of the week. I closed the book and continued looking through more published material. Bummer. Has anyone noticed how rarely Pecorino appears in recipes? Always pushing myself to try new things I decided I will me making Ramsay’s recipe after all.
November is Vegan Month and Suganya from Tasty Palettes is looking for vegan recipes. Vegans don’t eat any animal products at all; that means no eggs, no milk, no cheese, nada. As you can see lots of people have stepped up to the challenge to go vegan for a day, week or a whole month. As much as I love animals, I think I will be cheering from the sidelines on this one. When I eat vegetarian for a few days at a time, I get this strange floating sensation when walking, which means after a month I’ll probably be on my way to Mars. Who’s going to post you all these yummy recipes then? Eating meat roots me firmly to the ground and I like it here on planet Earth.
A lot of people I have met frowned at the idea of pairing meat with fruit. Yet year after year folks queue hungrily at the carvery for a coveted slice of turkey and dive into the cranberry jelly. Recently I prepared this salad for my dear friend Robyn. She successfully refrained from screwing up her face (it took a lot of effort) and hesitantly said she would try “a bit”. In a few minutes she finished every morsel on her plate and exclaimed her disbelief at how scrumptious it was. Are you willing to give it a try?
In today’s rat race there are so many ready-made desserts and sweets on shops’ shelves that the fresh produce section gets automatically shunned when people are choosing a dessert. Yet the possibilities of fruit desserts are endless. This recipe, if you can call it that, is simple and suits every occasion, even a dinner party.
Avocado and grapefruit is just one of those classic combinations in a salad. The seriously rich and green taste of the avo is extremely well complemented by the sweet and fruitiness of the grapefruit. There is no need for salad dressing either, because more than enough grapefruit juice would have accumulated while you were in the process of peeling and segmenting the citrus fruit. Since grapefruit possesses the same qualities as lemon, it will keep the avo from turning brown. To prepare the spinach leaves you use the technique the French call “en chiffonnade”, “chiffon” meaning rags. (In Michelle language that would mean “to raggify”.) Take a few leaves at a time and roll them into a tight cigar before finely cutting. The leaves unroll into tiny, delicate “rags”. The lightness of the salad is unreal and would make an excellent starter.
The beauty of salads is that they are so easy and (usually) quick to prepare. It is very difficult to go wrong, since most of the time there is nothing to cook. What’s more you don’t need a lot of ingredients to put a salad together and if you don’t have the components to make your own salad dressing, you can simply reach out for a jar of mayonnaise or ready-made salad dressing. Yet again this is a more substantial salad that can also be served as a main course.
[Read more...]
Like most men Neil regards salads as fluffy, bunny food and I can’t say I disagree. Our main issue with most of them are that you are starving half an hour later after getting up from the table. This problem has been solved by adding protein and starch to the leaves. Breakfast Salad is my other name for this dish. It’s got eggs, bacon and potatoes without all the grease and some greens with vitamin goodies. On a warm summer’s day this is perfect for al-fresco dining.
[Read more...]