Salads
Salads can be anything from plain lettuce as a side dish to a filling main course. You can include
lettuce, radish, tomato, pepper, carrot, celery, raw cabbage, fruit (e.g. orange, apple), ham, bacon,
sardines, anchovies, tuna, olives, walnuts and exotic ingredients like pine nuts. The only rule is good
taste. Salad dressings are essentially a mixture of oil and vinegar with seasoning.
In France and Spain, I have often had salads with big bits of bacon, eggs, walnuts, sausage,
cheese as well as lettuce and other leaves. If you serve up a filling salad like this as a starter, plan
the main course accordingly, perhaps a single piece of quality meat or fish with a light garnish of
vegetables. This is a good strategy for dinner parties, as you can prepare a substantial salad before
guests arrive so relax and enjoy their company more without those embarrassing ‘stomach rumbling’
delays.
Here are a few basic recipes which work well as written and as starting points for you to add your own
touches to.
European style mixed salad
Lettuce
Olive or walnut oil
Balsamic or cider vinegar
Walnuts
Bacon (grilled and sliced, or fried bacon scraps)
Tomatoes
Hard boiled eggs
1 rasher of bacon, half an egg, a good handful of lettuce and 4-6 walnut halves per person is about
right. Just combine the ingredients and pour over the dressing.
Do not prepare a mixed salad until immediately before it is to be served or it will spoil. Tear rather
than chop leaves (its OK to chop crispy hearts lengthways), put them in a salad bowl with the
quartered hard boiled eggs, walnut pieces, grilled or fried bacon pieces and sliced lightly salted
tomatoes, then sprinkle over a salad dressing made from 4 parts extra virgin olive oil or walnut oil and
1 part vinegar whisked up together in a cup with a fork. Variations as well as regular lettuce, try
different sorts of leaves like rocket, chard, coloured lettuce etc, plus fresh herbs like garlic, basil and
oregano.
Salad Nicoise
There are numerous variations of this classic, but the essential is lettuce, tuna, olives, tomatoes and
hard boiled eggs. You can mix it all up in a bid salad bowl and invite people to serve themselves,
which is more flexible, or arrange it on individual plates, which is more attractive. Don’t ruin this or
other salads with cucumbers, serve these very smelly vegetables separately if people want them. OK,
if you have checked and everyone likes cukes, put some in the salad, but do ask first since you
cannot get the stink out once its in. Cucumbers for me are like piano music, what one does to my
sense of taste and smell, the other does to my ears. I don't mind them existing as long as I don't have
to experience them.
English country garden salad
Lettuce, spring onions, radish, thinly sliced raw carrots all mixed in a big bowl, combined with a salad
dressing of your choice, I suggest 4 parts extra virgin olive oil and with one part cider vinegar, a
spoonful of Dijon mustard makes a nice addition to the dressing, or some chopped chives.
Potato salad
Boil small or cubed potatoes in salted water (ideal size about 3cm cube). Red or ‘waxy’ potatoes are
best as they stay together better. When done, add while still hot to mayonnaise with crushed garlic
and chopped chives. This is good hot or cold. Variation add some turmeric powder or saffron to the
cooking water to turn the potatoes yellow and add an exotic spicy flavour. Or grate some Parmesan to
melt over the hot potatoes before adding the mayonnaise. Green jalapeno sauce sets this dish off to
perfection.
Carrot salad
Thinly sliced carrots can be added to most salads, also a salad can be made from grated carrots and
some sultanas or other dried fruit tossed with walnut oil and freshly squeezed lemon or orange juice
(70:30 or so).
Slightly exotic Salad
Little Gem cos lettuce hearts
2 ripe avocados
2 Satsumas
Handful of walnut pieces
1 Shallot
1 clove garlic
1 cm cube ginger, shredded very fine
12 coriander berries
3 tsp walnut oil
1tsp balsamic vinegar
Slice the cos lettuce hearts in half, then slice each half into thirds, cutting lengthways. Add the thinly
sliced shallot, garlic and ginger chopped very fine, the chopped avocado, the Satsumas sliced thin
and peeled, and a handful of walnuts. Add the walnut oil and the balsamic vinegar, whisked together
first, plus the cracked coriander berries, lightly stir it all together. The coriander sets off the orange
perfectly, while the ginger, which must NOT be overdone, is an unexpected pleasure when you catch
a hint of it.
This is purely an outline and a few suggestions, all sorts of other things work very well as salads.
Since I wrote the main text I tried some grated celeriac and it was very nice, and I haven't even
mentioned Waldorf salad, there are loads of parameters to push, all of this is only a start.
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