Ham salad

Cara, Angel, Joyce, Kate, Grace, Danielle, Courtney, Gabi

This reminds me of salad we used to have for our 'tea' in the summer when I lived with my grandparents in Tynemouth, near Newcastle.

All the salad ingredients were grown by my granda in his garden or allotment.

We would have:

• cucumber, from a frame in the garden
• round lettuce, from a frame in the garden
• tomatoes, from the greenhouse
• cress, from the windowsill
• radishes, I'm not sure where they grew
• eggs, sliced with an egg cutter (you never see egg cutters anymore)
• ham, from the butcher
• boiled new potatoes, tossed in mint (from the garden)

All with a dollop of salad cream, since salad dressing hadn't been invented in the 70s.

Gina, Peggy and Andrea

Ham salad ingredients

For Salad Club we used the following ingredients:

• Ham, from the deli counter in Tesco
• Hard boiled eggs, cut in half with a knife
• Salad leaves, from a packet
• Coleslaw (was going to be homemade but in the end was from Tesco)
• Cherry tomatoes, from Tesco
• Cucumber, from Tesco
• Mashed potato salad, made by Joyce*
• Salad dressing, made with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, grain mustard and a pinch of sugar)
• Paula's plum chutney 

* Mashed potato salad

I have to admit to having reservations about mashed potato salad, but this old Higgins family recipe is absolutely delicious.

1. Make mashed potatoes as you normally would, by adding butter, milk, salt and pepper to hot cooked potatoes, then mashing till smooth. 
2. When the potatoes are cool, add finely chopped white or red onion, salt, pepper and malt vinegar to taste. In our case, you add a lot of malt vinegar. I know it sounds weird but think about it - you add malt vinegar to chips.  
3. Serve cold.  

 

Ham salad

The photo of the ingredients looks quite sad, so I made it small.

Homemade coleslaw that comes with a warning

Homemade coleslaw is a doddle, the only effort required is chopping and grating. You can use whatever raw root vegetables you fancy  - swede and celeriac work well - so long as you include some form of cabbage and a little onion. The pear goes well with blue cheese, but grated apple is also good.

Coleslaw ingredients

• 1/8 red or white cabbage
• 1 very small red onion or 1/2  tennis ball sized red onion
• 1/2 raw grated parsnip
• 1/2 raw grated courgette
• 1/2 raw grated carrot
• 1 tablespoon mayo
• 1 tablespoon yoghurt
• 1/2 very ripe pear, grated
• about 1 tablespoon blue cheese, crumbled
• 1 teaspoon English mustard
• About a dessertspoon poppy seeds 

How to make coleslaw

1. Lightly toast the poppy seeds in a small frying pan then leave to cool.
2. Mix together the yoghurt, mayonaise and mustard in a large bowl.
3. Discard the outer leaves of the cabbage.
4. Cut down either side of the tough stem and discard this too.
5. Shred the remaining cabbage leaves finely. 
6. Finely chop the onion
7. Add to the dressing along with the other raw vegetables and the pear.
8. Gently mix together so that everything is coated with the dressing.
9. Scatter over the poppy seeds and crumbled cheese and fold gently to combine.

Homemade coleslaw: a warning

Do not make too much! You will not eat it. Then you will feel guilty about throwing it away.