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First day of spring - time to think about salad?

  • rosemary
  • 9 hours ago
  • 5 min read

"Choose one hero ingredient and let it lead the way." Ottolenghi


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I'm really not a salad person. There I've said it, as my son would say. I always feel as if I'm chewing forever, like a rabbit.


Mind you I do love a French style green salad, and we have one with almost every meal, after our main course. And David adds slivers of Parmesan to his - well not Parmesan, but a grana from the Parmiggiano region. Not Parmigiana Reggiano. A subtle distinction, but nevertheless a real one. Well it's cheaper and still tastes pretty good.


I like a potato salad too, and yesterday I made one for the second granddaughter's family birthday party, but I also made this Roasted, pickled and fried onions (aka onion party) as a second salad offering.


I had offered to do two salads you see, and I have been meaning to make this from Ixta Belfrage's book Mezcla for some time. So, as it was a barbecue meal, I thought it would be a good thing to have. And actually it turned out to be so - I saw some of the grandchildren putting it in their hamburgers, but as I made it I realised that actually I think it is meant to be served warm. I think I also got the proportions wrong - well I tripled it - there were 15 people at the party and the recipe was for four. I say tripled, but it was 'sort of' shall we say. And as I cooked it I thought I might not have enough - you never realise how much greens and onions diminish in quantity as you cook do you? I definitely thought I didn't have enough when I put the cooked base of caramelised turmeric and maple syrup flavoured onions on the base. They just didn't cover the plate, but now I look again at the picture I see that they are actually fairly spread out on Ixta's plate. Anyway I changed to a smaller plate, which meant the charred spring onions, densely covered the onions, and then the pickled red onions even more densely covered them. So you couldn't really see what it was all about.


I should have kept to the big plate, and perhaps reserved some of the pickled onions. And as it turned out I had more or less the right amount I think. There was just a small amount leftover. And although they weren't really warm - just room temperature - it worked fine as a salad for a barbecue - and tasted great. The recipe is not online alas either from the publishers or Ixta herself, or from some blogger who has given it a go. Maybe somebod will soon. Or you can buy the book - it has so many good things in it. And it certainly aligns with Ottolenghi's hero ingredient thesis.


And already I have strayed from my subject which was meant to be much more general. So back to it.


This year, I think I have been more than usually frustrated by the seasonal divide between the nourthern and southern hemispheres when it comes to food. Most of the food sources that I access regularly are northern hemisphere based, and so there has been a steady stream of salads and spring vegetables which looked gorgeous but which were inappropriate and mostly unavailabale, at least at reasonable prices here in Australia.


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I kept some of Ottolenghi's substack newsletters however, because he has become much more interesting in his newsletter approach this year. Yes there are recipes, but there is also a lot of thoughtful stuff about this and that. And back in June he began a three-part series on salads - and to suck you in, this lovely picture of Tomato and cucumber salad with tahini and spicy dukkah oil. This recipe is online.


In my youth we often had a tomato and cucumber salad. And that was it - tomatoes and sliced cucumbers - no dressing, no herbs just tomatoes and cucumber. That was salad. Ottolenghi hasn't done much more but it's oh so different. It's actually a kind of fusion, in that as well as the Middle-Eastern tahini, there is also soy sauce, rice wine vinegar and crispy chilli oil in the sauce. I think I might make this one some time as well.


Again I have strayed from generalities to specifics. So what are some of the generalities in that newsletter - What makes an Ottolenghi salad? - part 1 - that are worth storing away for the next time you need to make salad? And can I find any examples that aren't Ottolenghi?


"it can’t wilt as soon as it’s dressed or weep when you sprinkle it with salt."


And I think I can't say much more on that other than to concur. And I was very conscious of not sprinkling those pickled red onions over the onion salad until the last moment although it may not actually have mattered too much. It matters if you've got leaves though.


"The cut changes everything ... Slices lie flat, maximising surface area for dressings and seasonings to cling to. They create layers, allowing you to build upwards. Wedges, on the other hand, take up space, with crisp edges that caramelise, soft centres that stay tender."


And he does look at contrasts and layers in his second newsletter about salads, which I'll leave for another day. However at this point I started browsing my cookbooks and the net of course, to find super beautiful looking salads that illustrated the hero ingredient proposition. And I have to say it was quite enlightening to see that the most tempting (and gorgeous) looking salads, were indeed comparatively simple, focussed on one hero ingredient, and jumped out of the hundreds of mishmashes that dominated.


So here are a few if the weather brightens up a bit in the near future. It is spring after all - and over there it's autumn - well not quite - they wait until the 21st in Britain - but the temperatures at least are getting to be much the same. A barbecue might be a possibility. And barbecues need salads. So in no particular order:

Roasted broccoli salad with lime and chilli dressing and Bombay Mix - from Noor Murad's Lugma, and alas not online; Citrus salad with green leaves - Claudia Roden/Lorrie Graham; Spicy roasted carrot salad - Claudia Roden/Robby Dog Cooks; Pea and fetta salad - Jamie Oliver; Beetroot and fennel slaw - Nigel Slater; Fennel, peach and goat's cheese salad - Claudia Roden/Cooks Without Borders; Carrot, orange and chervil - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall; Beetroot, goat's cheese and redcurrant salad - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and

Eggplant caponata salad - Sam Parish(Coutts)/delicious.



I now see that I have exclusively focussed on appearance here, which is a rather superficial way of looking at things. After all this is food. It's for eating after all. Surely the taste is more important? Ottolenghi, by his own admission, is focussing in his newsletter on appearance because it's crucially important for him - both for the salads he sells in his delis, and for the photographs that illustrate his cookbooks. It's the hook. Nevertheless you would hope that all of these are not just pretty, but that they taste good too. My onion salad certainly did.


And how you cut your ingredient certainly changes the whole thing - just look at the two beetroot examples immediately above. One all wispy and light, the other much earthier and almost Christmassy.


Trouble is it's not very springlike here at the moment. The black clouds are gathering and rain is forecast shortly. Not a good day for salad. A good bowl of warming soup would be a better idea.


YEARS GONE BY

September 1

2020 - Missing

2018 - Nothing



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