Salad Recipes

Cous cous is very easy

I don't use stock in mine (unless I have made it myself)
I just add the hot water, when it is 'done' I add:
Lemon juice
Pesto
Garlic
Finely chopped peppers
Toasted pine nuts
Feta cheese

Lash it all in, you don't need salt - the pesto & feta is salty enough.

Pasta salad -
Chopped tomatoes or peppers
Sesame oil
Just mix it around.
Add onions if you like.

If you get good feta, a simple tomato & feta salad is nice.
Just season it and add nice olive oil

good old "tomato and mozarella" goes down a treat as well - simply layer tomato slices and mozarella slices, drizzle with a little balsamic vinegar and oil, and maybe some fresh basil - and you're done ;-)

Before anyone thinks I'm nuts, there's method in my madness here. I know there are lots of requests for salad dressing, but I'm after recipes for salads themselves. I'm not talking about things like cold pasta salad (which I personally believe is a crime against humanity).

This thread was inspired by me fishing a bulb of fennel out of the cool drawer last night and thinking 'Hmm, what's going to go with this?' I had been having fennel with rocket, quartered fresh figs and shaved parmesan, but now I'm all out of figs. Instead it was fennel with rocket, shaved parmesan and a fig vinegar I bought last time I was in England in August 2007, but it really didn't hit the same spot. I don't really know what else to put with fennel for a salad that isn't like a bad night on the pernod though.

If I'm making a standard 'salad' to go with a baked potato and a steak, I'll always use a watercress, spinach and rocket mix, and to that I'll add finely chopped carrots and celery for crunch, sliced sundried tomatoes for sweetness, a few chopped black olives (again the kind that have been brined but are not floating in water in a jar). I'll then add toasted pine nuts and shaved parmesan, and dress it with a dressing made from balsamic vinegar and olive oil shaken with a clove of crushed garlic and some pepper and salt.

I know Minder has a good recipe for a salad involving feta and oregano, but I can't remember how it's done, or the one with the melon and tomato (hint hint, post here!)

Plus there are salads that are just leaves, salads that are no leaves at all, and specific mixes that go with specific dressings (waldorf, caesar).

So what's your speciality?

I make greek salad like this for two people

4 tomatoes - chopped
Cucumber - peeled & chopped
Red onion - thinly sliced and salted to draw some of the moisture
Feta - crumbled
Black olives - split & de-stoned
Green pepper - thinly sliced
Dired oregano

I put some olive oil in a salad bowl and add the dried oregano,
Thinly slice the onion and salt it.
Add everthing else to the bowl but don't mix
After about 15 minutes of salting the onions, I add these.
Season with black pepper and mix. Leave to stand for a bit before serving.

This is excellent with a steak and a few chips. The flavour of the oregano in the salad really compliments the steak.

Other salads

Warm salad of poached pear with blue cheese and hazelnuts. This is served with a light vinegarette.

Peel, halve and core one pear per person.
Poach in mixture of white wine & water with a squeeze of lemon, until soft.
Toast hazelnuts in the oven and rub in a teatowel to remove skins. Bash them up a bit.
Take the pear out of the liquid, place on a grill and add a slice of blue cheese.
Grill until the cheese melts.
Plate up - A handful of rocket dressed with vinegrette, scatter some hazelnuts and put the pears on top. Gather up any of the melted cheese that escaped.

Or try roast parsnips with beetroot.

Peel and cut parsnips into long pointy fingers. Take out the woody core.
Blanch in boiling water and roast until crispy.
Dice some cooked beetroot.
Mix yoghurt and homous for a dressing and thin with a little water if too thick. Add a little horseradish to taste.
Add half the diced beetroot to the dressing.
Plate up a pile of green leaves dressed with a little olive oil.
Arrange the parsnips on top like a tent with the points up.
Scatter the diced beetroot around the plate and spoon on the dressing.

I made celeriac remoulade yesterday for the first time - grated peeled celeriac (coarsely grated, and quickly - it discolours if you don't put it in acidulated water as you work), mayonnaise (I used garlic aioli), lemon juice and wholegrain mustard. We had it with roasted spuds but I think it would be even better with fish & chips, in place of coleslaw.

UB wrote: »

You know it's deepest winter in Ireland?

I'm fully aware of that. I'm currently baking a lot of pies. Puff pastry and lucious fillings, very wintry fare. Also potentially thick-waistline-and-heart-attack-enducing if served with buttery mashed potatoes or a bowl of chips and some peas, especially since they're on the menu three or four times a week.

Puff pastry beef pies with a side salad, however, is the best of both worlds. It also has the added advantage that you feel like you can actually still move when you've finished eating.

Anyway, as you hit on with the celeriac remoulade, I'm not thinking of salads as in green leaves skinny women have for lunch with no dressing - I'm basically looking at it as a cold (or warm) side dish through which you get your vegetable intake.

Peter Gordon's Salads book is very good, but it requires a lot of ingredients which are hard to find in Ireland, but you might have better luck down under.

I love making roast pepper salads, but I find it takes utterly sodding AGES to take the skins off the peppers. Any tips for a quick fix? I can get big, really fresh capsicums here (as they call peppers in Australia), but I don't know if they're extra fresh and juicy or what, but the last time I made a pepper salad it took nearly 40 minutes for me to charcoal the skins on four large peppers. I was sitting them directly on the gas burners of the five-ring hob here, but it was hard to prop them up and teh whole thing was fiddly.

Interestingly, by the time they were charcoal-skinned they were also pretty much cooked so the salad was extra nice, but still, there's gotta be an easier way?!

Minesajackdaniels wrote: »

I love making roast pepper salads, but I find it takes utterly sodding AGES to take the skins off the peppers. Any tips for a quick fix? I can get big, really fresh capsicums here (as they call peppers in Australia), but I don't know if they're extra fresh and juicy or what, but the last time I made a pepper salad it took nearly 40 minutes for me to charcoal the skins on four large peppers. I was sitting them directly on the gas burners of the five-ring hob here, but it was hard to prop them up and teh whole thing was fiddly.

Interestingly, by the time they were charcoal-skinned they were also pretty much cooked so the salad was extra nice, but still, there's gotta be an easier way?!

An old grill tray or oven rack will keep them off the burners - Once black they need to be kept under cover for 15 minutes. That helps loosen the skins and also avoids scorched fingers.

Does anyone have any tasty receipes for a pasta salad, my sister is having a party on Sat, and was thinking a big pasta salad would be a good idea as a soaker up along with some chips & dips. She doesn't have big fridge space to store before hand.

Pasta, Mayo, sweetcorn, kidney beans, bacon pieces and peanuts, pepper to taste. Simple and delicious

Does anyone else think that pasta salad is just wrong - like cold , stirred up pasta dinner??

Anyone?:rolleyes:

Thanks folks, some great suggestions there - we might even do different ones, because one the pasta is cooked its just adding the main flavour

i like chinese dry coleslaw simple to make,
white cabbage shredded small, grated carrot, rice vinegar , spoon of sugar or 2 in the vinegar to take the sting out. Refrigerate for half a hour before eating

Yum