Salad Club IV: salad nicoise

Kate, Erik,  Peggy

I'm convinced that the reason so many people are missing from this week's salad club is that its a shit salad: tuna nicoise. Although I like every ingredient individually, there is just something about combining them all on one plate that makes me depressed and think of Torquay. Perhaps it once featured in an episode of Fawlty Towers?

Due to drop-outs (going to Amsterdam on business, on holiday in the Caymen Islands, kidney infection, yada yada), myself and Kate (Director of Salad Communications) are stepping up to cover the shortfall.

Salad nicoise ingredients 

• 750g baby new potatoes - cooked, then dressed when hot with a good lug of olive oil and some grated lemon rind
• A lot of green beans (Kate to supply details of exact amount)
• A large tub black olives - we used Kalamata olives which were a little on the salty side but good nonetheless 
• 2 packs cherry tomatoes
• Some salad leaves
• Anchovies - as many as you want, or don't want as the case may be (I hate anchovies)
• 1 boiled egg per person. The eggs were done to perfection by Kate. She boiled them for 2 minutes then took them off the heat and left them in the water, I think.
• 3 tins tuna steak in brine 
• I portion lemon dressing

Lemon dressing for salad nicoise ingredients

• About 10 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• About 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• Juice 1/2 lemon
• 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
• Salt, 2 large pinches
• A good grinding of black pepper
• 2 small garlic cloves, crushed, but unpeeled

Oh, and by the way, I am a convert: this salad was delicious.

Salad Club III: Who is him? Greek salad

Today's salad is in honour of our former Greek colleague. We miss you, Nikki Papadaki.

Authentic Greek salad does not contain lettuce or chicken. For some reason, our version included cooked chicken, but I did draw the line at lettuce.

Greek salad ingredients

• 2 packs feta cheese (400g in total)
• 1 large cucumber, cut into cubes
• black olives, a large tub
• 1  red and 1 yellow pepper, cut into cubes
• 2 punnets cherry tomatoes
• 1 small red onion, very finely sliced
• 1bunch mint
• 1 bunch basil
• Cooked chicken

 
 
 
 

Greek salad dressing ingredients

• Olive oil
• Lemon juice
• Thyme
• Salt & pepper

 

Greek salad accompaniments to serve

Hummus, tzatziki, pitta bread. 


This week's salad club got a little out of hand. There were too many members (9) and too many slackers. We almost ran out of food and I had to send out rules. 

This week's star Tosser was Amber, who brought in home made tzatziki. Kate also deserves a special commendation for the salad dressing.




 

Salad Club II: Mexican chicken

Mexican chicken salad ingredients

• 1 whole cooked chicken 
• 2 ripe avocados 
• 1 punnet cherry tomatoes
•  2 Cos lettuces, or 1 Romaine lettuce (any crispy lettuce will do) 
• 1 small red onion 
• 1 tin sweetcorn 
• 1 tin kidney beans 
• Coriander (cilantro, I am bilingual), chopped (optional) 
• 1 quantity salsa dressing

How to make Mexican chicken salad

This is the easiest salad to make in the world, since we bought a cooked whole chicken from the supermarket. 

1. Pull the chicken meat off the carcass
2. Chop the tomatoes in half
3. Cut the cucumber into thick slices, then quarter the slices
4. Finely chop the onion
5. Slice the avocado into thin slices
6. Put everything in separate bows
7. Empty the sweetcorn into its own bowl, and the beans into another
8. Get Courtney to make the salad dressing.

Enjoy!

Prawns, sardines and chicken on the barbeque

Halfway through September, and summer finally arrived. I  wished I hadn't left the barbeque exposed to the elements for a year, it would have saved my nails from splitting cleaning it with wire wool.

To start, large shell on prawns, marinaded in crushed garlic and lemon juice. Delish.

Next, sardine fillets that the fishmonger somehow convinced me to buy. These were marinaded in olive oil, dill and lemon juice.These only took a few minutes each side  to cook on the barbie.

To go with this, a potato salad, based on several of Nigel Slater's recipes.  

Potato salad ingredients

• 1/3 cucumber
• 6 cornichon
• baby new potatoes - about 300g
• 1/2 bunch dill
• 1/2 bunch chives
• 2 tablespoons half fat creme fraiche
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard  
• I tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• I teaspoon cider vinegar 

How to make potato salad

You need to prepare the cucumber by halving then quartering it and then cutting out the slimy jelly seedy bit in the middle or else it will make your potato salad go soggy. Its not really the best bit of the cucumber in any case. 

Mix together all the ingredients apart from the potatoes in a large shallow dish.

Then you just need to cook the new potatoes by putting them in a pan, pouring over some boiling water and adding a good pinch of salt. Turn down to a simmer then cook till tender - probably about 20 mins depending on the size and variety of the potatoes.

Once the potatoes are tender when tested with a skewer, drain and then toss in the dressing straight away while still hot. This allows the flavours to be absorbed and prevents your potatoes from drying out.

By the way, don't ever add boiling water to floury potatoes (they type you would use for mash or roasties) as they will fall apart in the water.

As you can see, we also had a cheeky little corn on the cob with our sardines and potato salad.

Finally, chicken kebabs. 

Chicken breasts were cut into largeish pieces and marinaded in olive oil, thyme leaves, lemon juice and garlic for a couple of hours. 

I then threaded them onto wooden skewers, soaked for a few minutes in boiling water so the chicken doesn't stick to them, interspersed with pieces of red onion, yellow peppers and cherry tomatoes.

This threading of different vegetables and the meat turned out to be a mistake: the tomatoes were cooked within minutes and started to drip off the skewers. After a little reassembly job the chicken and peppers cooked at the same time, with the onions taking a little longer. This didn't matter, as it gave the chicken a few minutes to rest while the onions finished cooking.
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Pasta, prawns, peppers

Pasta is boring. It's what you eat at home when there's nobody else around. Its not something you serve to guests (unless you actually made the pasta yourself) and its not something you choose when eating out. It is lazy cooking. But it can be damn tasty.

If pasta recipes are as easy to write as they are to cook I may be about to enter an extremely prolific blogging phase.

Pasta with prawns and peppers (OK, plus a few more ingredients) 

• 2 small portions fusili pasta (wholewheat or tricolore)
• I bag raw king prawns
• 1/2 red pepper
• 1/2 yellow pepper
• 1/2 punnet cherry tomatoes
• 4 sundried tomatoes
• 1 bag rocket
• Chilli oil
• Unwaxed lemon, rind only

How to make pasta with prawns and a few other ingredients

 

1. Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan.
2. Cut the peppers into very thin strips and fry gently in the oil until they start to blacken a little at the edges -- about 5 minutes.
3. Add the pasta to a pan of boiling, salted water and set the timer for 3  minutes shorter than the cooking time given on the packet.
4. Chop the sundried tomatoes into very small pieces.
5. Cut the cherry tomatoes into a mixture of halves and quarters.
6. Add the prawns to the pan with the peppers and stir fry till pink and cooked through (about 4 minutes).
7. Drain the pasta and blanch with boiling water, reserving a tiny amount of the cooking water in a cup.
8. Put the pasta back in the saucepan, mix together with the peppers, prawns and tomatoes; season.
9. Add a little chilli oil, a little reserved cooking liquid and the rocket.
10. Toss until the rocket has wilted.
11. Serve with a little lemon rind grated over.

More pasta recipes:

Spag bol

Macaroni cheese

Macaroni cheese

Believe it or not, macaroni cheese is O’s desert island meal. I normally refuse to make it at weekends when I have time to cook something that takes more than 20 minutes. Today, however, I have relented. The addition of cauliflower and broccoli bumps up your vegetable intake for the day, but you can leave these out if you want.

This version is perfect for a quick weekday supper, and if you make a little extra you have tomorrow’s lunch for free sorted too. It is lower fat than most versions as it uses 0% fat Greek yoghurt for the sauce. To stop the macaroni cheese from drying out when you reheat it in the microwave add a little more olive oil and a couple more cherry tomatoes before reheating.

Macaroni cheese ingredients

I have no idea about precise quantities but the rough quantities given below will work as is or scaled up.

Serves 2 generously, with enough left over for a free lunch at work the next day.

• Dried macaroni – measure about one third dried pasta of the bowl you want to fill. Penne works too but not as well as short pasta such as macaroni. 
• About half a cauliflower and the same quantity broccoli
• A 170g tub 0% Greek yoghurt
• A handful grated mature cheddar
• About 1/3 teaspoon English mustard
• 2 spring onions, finely sliced
• 2 or 3 rasher streaky bacon, cut into small pieces (omit for a veggie version)
• A small handful breadcrumbs
• Linseeds, a scattering
• Parmesan
• Cherry or pomodorino tomatoes – a small punnet

How to make macaroni cheese

1. Boil the kettle, then empty into a large saucepan. I don’t understand people who boil water for pasta in the saucepan; it takes forever and I am convinced a kettle is more energy-efficient.
2. Add a pinch of salt to the water then add the pasta. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat to a simmer.
3. Dry-fry the bacon in a frying pan till crisp.
4. Cut the cauliflower and broccoli into small florets.
5. Tip the Greek yoghurt into a shallow dish. Add the mustard and stir to mix.
   Mustard enhances the flavour of cheese, so you don’t need to use quite as much.
6. Add the grated cheese to the dish and mix with the yoghurt.
7. About 8 minutes before the pasta is ready, put a bamboo steamer over the pan and add the cauliflower to the steamer. Cover with the steamer lid.
8. About 5 minutes before the pasta is ready, add the broccoli to the steamer.
9. Put the kettle on to boil.
10. Heat the grill to high (about 230C)
11. About 3 minutes before the pasta is ready according to the packet instructions, remove the pan from the heat.
12. Drain the pasta, reserving some of the cooking liquid in a cup.
13. Pour boiling water over the pasta and shake any excess off.
14. Mix the pasta with the yoghurt and cheese.
15. Add a little of the reserved cooking liquid to give a loose sauce.
16. Add the fried bacon, chopped spring onions and black pepper.
17. Place the cauliflower, broccoli and tomatoes over the pasta.
18. Grate over a little Parmesan, then sprinkle with the linseeds and breadcrumbs. This will make a crunchy topping.
19. Whack under the grill for about 5 minutes, till the top is golden brown and the tomatoes have burst.