Smoked salmon and new potato salad

Heaven, Courtney, Kate, Danielle, Yuki, Andrea, Gina, Joyce

The problem with writing up Salad Club recipes is that quantities are rarely specified. This means they can be little vague, although generally the quantities seem to work out fine.

This week, however, we had a large turnout, and thought a few extra potatoes were needed. We 'steamed' these in the microwave by cutting them in half, placing in a large tupperware container, covering with boiling water and cooking on a high setting for 10 minutes. I have to say they worked well. Thanks to Kate for the instructions on microwaving potatoes. . 

Smoked salmon and potato salad with horseradish ingredients

Enough for 12

• 3 packs smoked salmon
• New potatoes, boiled
• 1 cucumber, cut into matchsticks
• String beans (aka green beans or French beans)
• 2 avocados, roughly chopped
• 1 red onion, finely sliced
• 3 bags watercress*

Creme fraiche and horseradish dressing ingredients

• About 500ml half fat creme fraiche
• 1/2 large bunch dill
• Small amount chopped fresh parsley
• 1 bunch chopped chives
• Rind of 1 unwaxed lemon
• Juice of half a lemon
• 2 tablespoon hot horseradish sauce
• Salt and pepper

How to make fraiche and horseradish dressing

1. Chop the herbs finely and mix together with all the other ingredients.
2. Season to taste, adding more lemon and horseradish till the dressing has the right balance.

A word on watercress

*I watched some rubbish programme last week where James Martin annoyed me about how watercress was underused. Rubbish! Watercress is ubiquitous!

Watercress is a great salad ingredient but doesn't hang around in a good condition for very long. If you get it mixed with other leaves in packets from the supermarket its always the first one to go soggy. You end up either throwing out the whole lot or picking out the rotten watercress to salvage the rocket and spinach. Packs of just watercress from the greengrocer need using up within a day or two before they turn slimy and unusable.

Of course, watercress doesn't just belong in salads. Its peppery taste and vivid green colour can be turned into a cracking sauce to go with fish, or, my favourite, fishcakes.
 

 

 

Salad Club: Tastes of Morocco

From left: Kate, Peggy, Yuki, Danielle

I've been on holiday for a week and in my absence it seems that Salad Club was also on a break.
On my return, we have a Moroccan themed Salad Club.

I am responsible for the hummus and roasted red peppers. I do my usual hummus recipe.

For the roasted red peppers, I do some online research, and find that controversy rages as to the best way of doing this. Some roast the peppers over a naked gas flame. This seems like a tedious and slightly dangerous method to me. So then. Oven? Grill? Whole? Quartered? Who cares? Does it really make that much difference? The answer is probably yes. Having cut and deseeded the peppers and roasted them in a hot oven for about an hour, I took them out and put them straight into a tupperware box with a clip lid, thinking this would make the skins easy to peel off when cool. Wrong. After about half an hour I ended up with an incompletely peeled pathetic little heap of pepper pieces.  I swear, next time I buy them in a jar.

Sorry for cutting your head off Danielle

The rest of the Salad Clubbers brought in the following:

• Cooked chickpeas
• Steak
• Tomato salad
• Artichokes
• Lemon couscous
• Halloumi
• Cucumber, cut into chunks
• Salad leaves
• Steak 
• Chopped dill
• Chopped parsley

For the couscous (Yuki)

Add the rind of half a lemon, some thyme and Moroccan spice mix to the couscous then cover with boiling water and leave to soak for about 10 minutes.

For the tomatoes (Kate)

• Dice tomatoes and add the following:
• Garlic
• Parsely
• Dill
• Spring onion
• Lemon peel
• Cumin
• Ras el hanout
• Curry powder
• Nutmeg
• Red wine vinegar
• Salt and pepper

 
As for the quantities, you're on your own here - this is Kate's secret recipe and She. Will. Take. It. To. The. Grave. 

For the steak (Peggy)

• 1 kg steak
• 2 cloves of garlic, pressed or very finely chopped
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, or more to taste
• 1/8 teaspoon chili pepper
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cliantro (coriander)
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons olive oil  

How to make the steak (as dictated by Peggy)

1. Stab the steak all over repeatedly with a knife. Pretend its that inconsiderate person that was taking up too much space on the tube this morning*
2. Dunk the steak in the 'marinade'. Apparently you are supposed to actually marinade the steak, though I have to say it worked perfectly well without marinading.
3. Make sure you poke some of the pieces of garlic into the holes made by stabbing the steak.
4. Fry the steak in the marinade for a while, then turn it over and fry the other side. My guess is as good as yours as to how long 'a while' is. The marinade will evaporate, leaving a paste.
5. Leave the steak to cool in the paste, then cut up into slices. 

*author's own addition.

All the homemade ingredients this week were exceptional, but the star Tosser had to be Peggy for the steak.

With thanks to article contributors Yuki, Kate and Peggy.  
Additional thanks to Yuki for HTML formatting help.