Mushrooms á la Grecque

I am very fond of this simple, classic salad. It'll keep for a while in a fridge and makes a smashing starter just served on a plate piled up with a twist of thinly sliced Parma ham. I often make this recipe with 1/4 of the ingredients as a side salad for 2 people, in which case I'll usually quarter the mushrooms (hence the piccie) but ideally it should be made with smaller button mushrooms left whole.

Ingredients

• 450ml water
• 100ml olive oil
• 1 large lemon, juiced
• Salt (a good pinch)
• 18 black peppercorns
• 18 fennel seeds
• 12 coriander seeds
• 1 tbsp chopped curly parsley
• 2 shallots, chopped finely
• 500g button mushrooms (2 punnets)
• 3cm celery, chopped

You don't have to go around counting seeds, just a few pinches here and there depending on how strong you like your spicy flavours. Put everything in a pan apart from the mushrooms and bring it to a boil, reducing to a lively simmer for about 10-12 minutes. Wipe the mushrooms and trim the stalks, then add them into the pan and cook them for another 10 minutes or so. Lift out the mushrooms and slip 'em into the serving dish of your choice, then boil down the cooking liquid, stirring it, until you've got 80-100ml of emulsified liquid left in the pan. Strain this over the mushrooms and chill until you're ready to serve them.

Cucumber Curry Salad

Cucumbers are mostly water, so this should be made shortly before serving, or the cukes will become pulpy and floppy - no crunch. Based on a cooked Srilankan curry, This is a little unusual (to me, anyway), quick and easy. Goes well with fish, or can be served as a non-traditional mezze, Sorry, no picture of the dish. Use your imagination

2 tablespoons crême fraiche or double cream with a little lemon juice added.

2 tablespoons plain thick yogurt

1 teaspoon "curry powder"

1 medium-sized seedless cucumber, peeled if the skin is thick or waxed. If you can't find seedless, cut it in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Slice it thinly.

Salt & pepper.

Toss the cucumbers with a little salt, leave in a bowl for 30 minutes. Rinse and drain.

Mix together the cream, yogurt and curry powder. Toss with the cucumber slices.

Adjust the seasoning. Serve immediately. If you let this stand, the cucumbers will continue to lose water and your salad will become a soggy mess.

Deconstructed Pizza Salad

The contents of a pizza (sort of) in a fancy-looking dinner party starter that really does taste as good as it looks – and has an appealingly pretentious name, too!

Fat Expat Chris ‘Slimseum’ Viljoen’s comment on the gazpacho salad I posted up a couple of weeks ago set me to thinking about the concept of deconstruction (you know, the almost ritualistic fight between life and death in the reduction of an organic entity to highlight and celebrate each of its component selfnesses in the de-meshing of the quintessential life linkages of the whole’s fabric) and that led to pizza.

So here it is. A salad inspired by pizza.

Ingredients

• 1 red pepper
• 1 yellow pepper
• 4 thin slices prosciutto or parma ham
• 25g parmesan, shaved
• 12 olives, pitted
• 12 slices ciabatta
• Buffalo Mozzarella
• 8 cherry tomatoes on their stalks
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• ½ tsp dried thyme
• 12-16 leaves fresh basil
• 8 sprigs fresh marjoram or oregano

Grill the peppers, turning them every 4-5 minutes so that their skins brown and blister on all sides, then either place them in a pan with the lid on or in a secured plastic bag for ten minutes. Remove them and, under a cold running tap, remove the skins, the stalk and the seeds. Pat the peppers dry, then slice them into 8 pieces, following the natural line of the segments. Lay these in a container and drizzle with three tablespoons of the olive oil and thyme. Incidentally, these can be left in the ‘fridge for a couple of days to marinate and are great on crisp slices of bread toasted with a light brush of olive oil.

Brush the ciabatta slices lightly with oil and place in an oven at around GM4 to toast for 10 minutes or so, or until they start to brown and become crisp.

Pan fry the tomatoes in the rest of the oil, adding a good pinch of pepper and salt – this will only take a minute and you need to take care that you don’t overdo it or the skins will split and they’ll mush up.

Lay the peppers on a plate, with a twist of ham across them. Dot the plate with broken off chunks of mozzarella, the herbs, tomatoes and olives. Drizzle a spoon of oil over the whole lot, sprinkle with parmesan and serve with the toasted ciabatta slices on the side.

Gazpacho Salad

Okay, so you've tried the soup. Now try the salad. The same ingredients just, well, treated with less whizzery!

This stupidly simple and utterly delicious, refreshing and generally polymesmeric salad is great with steak, finger lickin' with chickin' and the dish with fish.

Ingredients

• 6 plum tomatoes, chopped
• 1 cucumber, chopped
• 1 stick celery, chopped
• 6 spring onions, chopped
• 1/2 small bulb fennel, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, finely sliced
• 2 red peppers, chopped

Croutons

• 4 slices bread/ciabbata, diced
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp mixed herbs

Dressing

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 1 tsp mustard powder
• 1 tsp sugar
  
• 1 tsp salt

Toss the croutons in the oil and herbs and pan fry them until browned and crisp. Reserve in a warm place. Toss the chopped vegetables with the made-up dressing and serve scattered with warm croutons.

Or whizz the whole ingredient list with some water or good, clear cold stock and serve cold as a soup!

Fennel and Tomato Salad with Salsa Verde

I needed a new salad for a BBQ last Friday and this is what I came up with. I was very pleased with the result, especially as it was really a case of just using up some odds and ends in the fridge!

You will need:

1 bulb fennel, including the feathery bits.
6 plum tomatoes
1 red pepper
1 orange or 1 yellow pepper
Salsa Verde


And then you need to:

Slice the fennel thinly and fry gently with a little olive oil until it has browned just a little. Transfer to a glass bowl.

Roast the two peppers until the skin is blackened. Skin and remove seeds and pith etc. Slice in thin-ish strips and place into same bowl as the fennel.

Stir in two tbsp salsa verde to the fennel and pepper and check the seasoning.

Slice the tomatoes and lay on a platter in a neat pattern, slightly overlapping each other.

Spoon the fennel, pepper, salsa verde mixture on top of the tomatoes and serve.

Black Bean Salad

This absolutely delicious recipe comes from a good friend of ours and continues the Latin Amercan theme. Our friend lived in Chile for a number of years and this receipe comes to you, dear gentle readers, from her via there.

This is a great side dish to serve at a BBQ.

You will need:

½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon of orange zest
1 teaspoon of lime zest
60ml fresh orange juice
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons white-wine vinegar
½ teaspoon ground cumin
1/8 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes
A splash or two of tabasco sauce
350g black beans, soak overnight, rinse, cook and drained, you can also use chickpeas or any type of bean
1 red bell pepper, finely diced
Big handful of fresh coriander sprigs, washed well, spun dry, and finely chopped
Big handful of parsley, finely chopped
300g of corn, ideally roasted on the bbq and kernals removed from cob

And then the hard part

Put all of the ingredients together in a bowl, toss well and leave in the fridge to rest and cool before serving.

Simple Potato Salad

I like to serve this basic potato salad when it is really pretty cold but its important to mix in the mayonnaise and the cream whilst the potatoes are still warm.

You will need:

4 medium sized potato
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tbsp double cream
2 spring onions chopped fine
Small handful chopped fresh parsley
A few sprigs of fresh chives chopped
5 cornichons chopped fine
¼ tsp hot pimento
1 level tsp paprika
Salt and black pepper

And then you need to:

Peel and chop the potatoes into small chunks. I like mine really quite small but cut them how you want.

Place in cold salted water and bring to the boil, cook until quite tender.

In a large bowl combine all other ingredients

When the potatoes are cooked drain in a colander and throw them into the bowl with the creamy mixture. Give a good but gentle stir and mix well.

Warm Potato Salad with Smoked Haddock

Sometime ago whilst back in the UK we visited a beautiful Suffolk coastal town called Orford. Of course it was raining.

Orford is well known to foodies for having two traditional smokehouses and producing very fine, locally caught, smoked fish of all description. Actually they seem to smoke everything for in the little shop were big blocks of smoked cheddar, smoked cod roe, smoked hams, even smoked garlic bulbs, but it was for the fish that we had come. I bought some smoked haddock, smoked mackerel and my favourite, kippers (smoked herrings) and then had to figure out what to do with them!

With the haddock I decided to do a big platter of a warm potato salad as a sort of light lunch and it was yummy. I got the idea for the recipe out of a Woman&Home magazine which is rather embarrassing so I’ll keep that bit quiet.

This dish is a bit of a fiddle putting together but it is very, very easy, and I have to say, it is really divine.

You will need:

1 smoked haddock filet per person
500g of new potatoes, rinsed and scrubbed. Cut any largish ones in half.
4 baby gherkins, chopped roughly
Small handful of fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped
4 eggs, hard boiled, peeled and chopped into quarters
1 tsp capers, chopped
Small amount of chopped fresh tarragon or fresh dill would also be good (optional)


Dressing:

1 egg yolk
2 cloves garlic (blanched for 2 mins and mashed with fork)
2 anchovy filets
Juice of half a lemon
1 heaped tsp Dijon mustard
½tsp Worcester sauce
150ml EV olive oil
50g grated gruyere cheese

And then you need to:

Boil the potatoes in salted water until cooked, drain and set aside.

Make the dressing by either whisking in a bowl or in a food processor. First add egg yolk, anchovy, mustard, mashed garlic and Worcester sauce. With blade running or your arm whirring slowly add EV olive oil until all incorporated. Then, whilst still whisking add the grated gruyere cheese.

Stir in chopped gherkins, parsley (and other herbs if using) and the capers.

Gently poach the haddock in a small amount of milk, and when warmed through drain and flake into largish pieces.

In a bowl toss the potatoes with the dressing. Get your platter and spoon potatoes on the plate. Arrange the quartered boiled eggs around the side and spoon the flaked haddock all over the top of the potatoes. If there is more dressing left spoon some more on top. Serve whilst all still warm and delicious.

If you want a bigger garlic hit rub a cut raw clove over the bottom of the plate before putting the potatoes on it.

A Very French Salad

I failed to note the name of this from the menu, but I had it for lunch at a cafe in Epernay and it was amazing. So, like any grateful and conscientious chap would, I nicked it. The ingredient ‘green leaves’ is pretty much half a head of lettuce, some endives, oak leaf lettuce or really what you can get your hands on – you’re looking at a plateful of salad for each person.

Ingredients

• 140g smoked lardons
• 6 slices bread
• Green leaves
• 250g asparagus
• 8 freshly cooked poached eggs
• Vinaigrette
• Olive oil
• Dried herbs

Have a bowl of cold or iced water standing by. Blanch the asparagus: cut off the woody stem part and plunge the spears into boiling, salted water for a few seconds (no more than 30) then drain the asparagus and pop it into the cold water. Drain.

Take the crusts off the bread and chop it into squares. Put the bread in a bowl with a good sploosh of olive oil and a generous sprinkling of herbs and seasoning and toss it so that the bread has a chance to get coated in the oil. Heat a frying pan and fry the bread, keeping it moving so that each piece gets a nice sizzle all over and they become crispy and start to brown a little. Reserve in a warm place. Now fry off the lardons until they’ve crisped up a little.

Remove the eggs from their water and pop into a pan of boiling water for a couple of minutes, then serve the salad drizzled with lardons and croutons, asparagus, vinaigrette and finally topped with soft poached eggs and a good sprinkle of salt. Enjoy!

Lawar

This is a Balinese festive dish, served at major family celebrations and all the best restaurants. It is, in its native state, a pretty complex recipe and I’ve had to make all sorts of terrible compromises to bring it to the modern Western(ish) kitchen. All I can do is ask for forgiveness.

The biggest compromise is to neglect the kencur, the most commonly used spice in Balinese cooking. The root of the resurrection lily, a distant cousin of ginger and galangal, the smell of kencur is ubiquitous in Bali - there's nothing quite like it anywhere else in the world and you can’t get it outside of Indonesia.

Long beans, as has been said before, can be got at most supermarkets. If not, use French or dwarf beans. Blanch 'em for 10 seconds in boiling, salted water and plunge into ice water to keep 'em green.

I’ve also simplified the mixture of pastes used a little without, I hope, messing it all up beyond recognition.

The end result is a delicious, unique and unusual salad to go alongside any Asian meal or to have as a starter, perhaps with some green leaves or a little cool rice.

Ingredients

• 1 chicken breast (@125g), minced
• 12 long beans, blanched and cut into 0.5cm pieces
• ½ onion, finely chopped
• 1 large red chilli, deseeded and thinly sliced on its length
• 1 tbsp grated coconut, toasted
• 2 tbsp coconut milk
• ½ tsp crushed black pepper

Marinade

• 1 lemongrass, finely chopped
  
• ½ red onion, finely chopped
• 3cm galangal, grated
• 1 birds eye chilli, chopped
  
• 1 lime, zest and juice
• 2cm fresh ginger, grated
• ½ tsp powdered turmeric
• 1 tsp salt

I like to mince my own chicken with a knife, but the weight above of pre-minced chicken will do just fine. Mix the chicken with the marinade ingredients and leave it for a while to settle in – a couple of hours would be good.

Pan fry the coconut in a dry pan to toast it. Reserve this. Using the same pan and a splash of oil, fry off the ½ finely chopped onion to soften and then brown (but not burn). Reserve this.

With a little more oil, fry off the marinated chicken, stirring. It will cook quickly, in 3-4 minutes. Put it to one side to cool down a little. And now mix everything together: beans, chicken, chilli, coconut, coconut milk and then the cool chicken mixture.

Numan's Salad

Back in the UK I live in a small, slightly pleased with itself little market town called Hitchin. For many years (sadly no longer), it was home to a Turkish/French restaurant called The Mange Tout. Run with a deft touch for regulars by the heavy-lidded Jamal, it featured two menus and while its Turkish food was a real treat, the French stuff was pretty good too. One feature of the Mange Tout's regular offerings was 'Numan's Salad', named after Numan the Turkish waiter.

And this is it. As simple as you like and something that'll stay with you once you've tried it. Give it a whirl with chicken sticks, some freshly cooked plain basmati rice and a dollop of mayonnaise.

Ingredients

1 cucumber, finely diced
1 iceberg lettuce, finely shredded
6 plum tomatoes, deseeded and finely diced

Dressing
4 tbsp vinegar
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil

Mix the salad, add the dressing and toss to combine. Ta daaa!!

Grilled Mushroom Salad with Tahini Sauce

My lovely wife adores mushrooms so I am forever on the lookout for new things to do with them. I stumbled on this one in a magazine recently and it was a bit of a hit.

You will need:

8 large portobella mushrooms
1 tbsp chilli infused oil if you have any
6 tbsp EV olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
2 cloves garlic, chopped fine
Big handful flat leaf parsley chopped
3 heads of chicory
3 tbsp pine nuts, toasted
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
4 tbsp tahini paste



And then you need to:

Give the mushrooms a wipe and place on a foil covered baking tray.

Mix the chilli oil with 3 tbsp olive oil and brush over the mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper and grill under a high flame for about 5 mins each side. Squeeze half the lemon juice over them when you turn them.

Place the mushrooms in a large bowl with any juices, toss the mushrooms with 1 clove of garlic, half the parsley and the balsamic. Add a little more olive oil if they look dry.

In another bowl add the tahini paste and add the rest of the garlic. Add the rest of the lemon juice and give it a good stir. Don’t worry when it separates. Add 3 tbsp warm water (or double cream if you prefer) and stir until you have a smooth paste.

Separate the chicory leaves and tear the larger ones into 2 or 3 pieces. Arrange on a platter with the mushrooms, sprinkle the rest of the parsley, and then drizzle the dressing all over. Scatter the pine nuts on top and serve.

Som Tam

Green papaya salad – a great Thai staple and a surprisingly easy dish to make. It’s often served blisteringly hot and I prefer things much milder, so do feel free to double the chili count in the recipe below if you like food that makes you sniff uncontrollably. I’ve messed around a lot with various sugars: the Thai version uses palm sugar but if you can’t get hold of it (ie: if you don’t live near Sharjah’s Thai-Tastic Green House Supermarket) then just use jaggery. You’ll find jaggery in pretty much every supermarket in the Emirates – it’s a soft, brown unrefined sugar from India and has the same deep, caramel richness as palm sugar. Similarly, you’ll find long beans in pretty much any supermarket, but certainly Spinneys’ Sri Lankan freshies section. If you can't get long beans, though, just use ‘dwarf’ or ‘French’ beans – you’re aiming for around 50g of bean in all!

The key to this recipe is the pounding of it. If you’ve got a nice, heavy granite Thai pestle and mortar, you’re laughing. If you don’t, then there’s another reason to head off to the Green House Supermarket! (You’d think I was being paid to plug ‘em, wouldn’t you?) If you really don’t have access to a large pestle and mortar, then you’ll have to use a strong bowl, a substantial wooden spoon and a lot of ‘oomph’ to crush, bruise and generally bully and be damnably horrid to the ingredients.

Now last, and not least, to yer papaya. Again, Spinneys (and many other supermarkets, particularly the likes of Lal’s) sells green papayas, which are basically unripe papayas. You’re looking to skin this, halve it and scrape out the seeds and then slice it as finely as you can, ideally using something culinary and dangerous like a mandolin. The Thai traditional method is just to hack away at it with a sharp knife. Whichever potentially lethal way you decide on to turn that hard papaya into delicate strands, watch your fingers!

Ingredients

• 1 green papaya, julienned
• 1 bird’s eye chilli, quartered
• 50 g jaggery or palm sugar
• 2 cloves garlic, quartered
• 6 long beans, chopped in 2cm lengths
• 6 cherry tomatoes, quartered
• 30g roasted peanuts, chopped
• 2 tsp nam pla
• 3 tbsp lime juice

Put the chilli and garlic into the mortar and crush it like you would crush your worst enemy. Imagine you're a hood in Layer Cake or Lock Stock. Give it some welly. Be brutal, mean and generally beastly until it’s all pulped. Now add the jaggery, fish sauce and lime juice and give that a quick smack around the head too, to mix it all in. Add the beans and give them a quick slap around the ear to teach 'em some respect.

Add the papaya and give it a series of hard presses to bruise it, stirring it to ensure it gets an even, and sound, warning. Don’t go too far, or you’ll go and kill it. You’re not meant to be as brutal as the first crushing: the idea is to let the other ingredients infuse and mix together with the papaya. But don't be a pansy about it, either, or it'll think it can mess you about any time it wants.

Now add the tomatoes and press them, again going lighter than last time: just a hint of trouble just in case they think they can get away with that sort of thing in your manor. Mix it all up well, decant into your chosen serving dishes and you’re away!

This, of course, is a neat salad to serve alongside a couple of piping hot and aromatic chicken patties!

Arugula and Mushroom Salad

I feel a bit of a fraud posting this up as a recipe, because there’s very little to it beyond, well, combining some arugula and mushrooms. But here it is anyway. This is a favourite salad to go with a plain grilled strip-loin, a dish of warmed cannellini or haricot beans and a bottle of something Italian, a Chianti or even a deep, soft Montepulciano. The rose-red tranquillity of a Florentine sunset is the only ingredient missing...

I like to slice the fat off the strip-loin, give it a rubbing of olive oil, a sprinkle of salt and pepper and then I lay the fat over the steak before grilling it. Lining the grill tray with foil gets rid of any washing up inconvenience. The beans are just heated up, again well seasoned, and then given a splash of oil before being served with this salad on the side.

Arugula, or rocket, is also known as ‘girgir’ locally and has a tangy flavour not dissimilar in its effect to a milder version of radish or watercress.

Ingredients

• 1 bunch girgir, or arugula
• 6-8 button mushrooms, sliced
• 25g parmesan cheese
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp English mustard powder

Wash the girgir and pat dry in a paper towel, taking care not to bruise the leaves. Shave the parmesan into thin strips. Mix the olive oil, vinegar, salt and mustard powder, then drizzle over the leaves, sliced mushroom and parmesan.

If you've really got it bad, eat this while watching Tea With Mussolini or Room With a View...

Crab and Coconut Salad - Asian Flavours

This is a fabulous summery dish. You can quite easily substitute the crab for large cooked prawns if you so wish but it won’t be nearly as good. So there.

You will need:

200ml tin of coconut cream
1 tsp fish sauce
200g fresh picked crab, with some big pieces preferably
1 stalk lemongrass, outer leaves pulled off and the centre sliced very finely
2 spring onions chopped fine
4 kaffir lime leaves, chopped very fine
Small handful chopped fresh coriander
Small handful chopped fresh mint
1 Thai chilli, chopped fine. More if you wish
2 tsp fresh lime juice
1 tbsp roasted peanuts. Coarsely ground in mortar & pestle
2 shallots, thinly sliced into rings and fried until crisp


And then you need to:

Warm the coconut cream in a small saucepan over a low heat with the fish sauce (nam pla), don’t boil it just heat it through. When cooled add the crab meat and stir gently.

Put all the other ingredients (except peanuts and fried shallots) in a big bowl and mix them around. Add the crab/coconut mixture and give it a gentle stir. You may find this easier to serve on four individual bowls instead of one big one, that way you can make sure no greedy bastard takes all the good bits of the crab!

Sprinkle the peanuts and the fried shallots over the top and serve.

Cous Cous with Cucumber and Grapes

Ingredients

• 1 packet organic cous cous
• Local cucumber
• Small, seedless grapes
• Fresh mint, coriander & parsley
• Olive oil

Place cous cous in a large bowl and cover with boiling water as instructions on packet. Add a glug of olive oil, stir with a fork and leave to cool slightly.

Dice cucumber to same size as grapes (some of the smallest and sweetest come from Iran in September and October), then stir through prepared cous cous. Finely chop and add a good handful of mint, coriander and parsley. Adjust seasoning and serve.

Guest barbecue guru: EyeOnDubai

Grilled Aubergine with Tahini Sauce

Tahini paste is made from ground roasted sesame seeds and is easily available all over Dubai.

Ingredients:

2 medium sized local aubergines.
2 tbsp tahini (sesame) paste
Juice from half a lemon
1 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tbsp crème fraiche (or natural yoghurt)
50 ml double cream
Pine nuts
Chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley


In the oven or in a dry frying pan toast a small handful of pine nuts. Set to one side.

Slice the aubergine lengthwise into four slices, they should be at least 1cm thick, any less they will fall apart. Brush both sides with olive oil which has had a clove of garlic crushed into it.

Place the slices of the aubergine onto the hot grill and cook for about two minutes each side. Remove and place on a long shallow dish.

In a bowl combine the tahini paste and the lemon juice. It will turn all stiff and sticky, don’t worry! Add the mayonnaise and the crème fraiche and give it a really good stir. Then add the double cream, keep stirring and adding cream until you have quite a runny consistency for the sauce.

Pour the sauce over the grilled aubergine, sprinkle the pine nuts on the top and then garnish with the chopped parsley.

Chickpea & Chorizo Salad

This was a bit of an invention and I think it worked quite well.

Ingredients:

400g tin of chickpeas, washed and drained
1 red pepper
100g chorizo
1 spring onion chopped fine
5 or 6 little cherry tomatoes chopped into little pieces
Chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
3 tbsp EV olive oil
1 tbsp sherry vinegar
½ tsp caster sugar

Chop the chorizo into little pieces and in a little bit of olive oil gently fry it until it is crispy. You can add a drop of sherry to the pan if you like which does add a wonderful flavour.

Under a hot grill or over a flame roast the red pepper until the skin is slightly blackened. Wrap in foil and leave to cool. Remove the skin and the seeds inside, give it a very quick wash and slice into thin ribbons.

In a bowl put the drained chickpeas, the chopped tomatoes, the chorizo, the roasted pepper and the spring onions. Add seasoning.

You could also add some chopped black olives should you so be inclined.

Combine the oil, the vinegar and the sugar, stir to mix well and pour into the bowl. Give it all a good stir to cook and tip out onto a shallow platter. Sprinkle the parsley over the salad and serve.

Vietnamese Salad with Chicken / “Goi Ga”

We are very good friends with an English/Vietnamese couple and I have been pestering her for ages to teach me some Vietnamese dishes. Well finally I was obviously becoming too annoying and so invited me around last week and showed me two delicious recipes. She has also promised me a demonstration on Vietnamese spring rolls (both the cooked and uncooked types) and I can’t wait.

We were very regular visitors to a cheap and cheerful Vietnamese restaurant in Hong Kong called Perfume River and I was always surprised, and in fact I still am, about how both Thai and Vietnamese food share a lot of the same basic ingredients but how different their foods are.

Anyway, dear readers, I am going to share with you one of the recipes today and the others will follow.

I cannot help myself and I have already played around a little bit with her recipe and so this is my plagiarised version which may or may not be as good as the original.

Ingredients (for four)

300g chicken breast
5 carrots, peeled
5 small local cucumbers, washed, halved lengthways and seeds scraped out. Don’t peel.
2 red (Spanish) onions
A good sized handful of fresh coriander
A good sized handful of fresh mint
50g raw peanuts, roasted for five minutes then roughly crushed in mortar and pestle
2 cloves garlic
50g shallots, peeled and roughly chopped
2 tsp oyster sauce
2 tsp light soy sauce
Also salt, pepper, sugar, oil


For the pickling mixture:

200ml white (or rice) vinegar
200ml water
2 tbsp sugar
4 tsp fish sauce


For the dressing:

200ml boiled water from the kettle
2 tbsp granulated sugar
2 cloves garlic, chopped fine
2 Thai chillis, chopped fine (or more if you are brave)
2 tbsp fish sauce (nam pla)
2 tsp fresh lime juice


As with a lot of Asian salads, actually Asian food in general, the hard work and the time is in the preparation, the assembling of the salad is a work of minutes.

Place the chicken fillets on a wooden board, cover with cling film and using a rolling pin gently bash it to flatten and thin it slightly. Don’t go mad!

Place chicken into a shallow dish and sprinkle with salt, pepper, 1 tsp brown sugar, 2 tsp oyster sauce and 2 tsp light soy sauce, chopped garlic. Leave to marinade for 45 minutes.

In a saucepan put the pickling mixture ingredients, bring to a gentle boil, stir to make sure all the sugar has dissolved, remove from heat and set to one side to cool down.

Using a potato peeler or a mandolin on the thinnest setting cut into very thin strips the carrots, cucumber and the onions.

Put them into a glass bowl and pour the cooled pickling liquid on. Give it a very good stir and set to one side for at least 45 minutes. Give it another good stir every ten minutes or so to make sure all the vegetables get a good soaking.

Make the dressing by combining boiled water with the sugar and stirring until dissolved, then add the rest of the ingredients. Set to one side to cool.

Take a clean tea towel and place about a quarter of the chopped vegetables (carrot, cucumber and onions) in the middle. Fold the towel and giving it a number of very tight twists squeeze out as much liquid as you can. Tip the squeezed vegetables onto a large flat platter, and repeat until all the vegetables are done.

In a small frying pan with about 1 tbsp groundnut oil (no one said Vietnamese salads were healthy) fry the chopped shallots until nicely browned and a little bit crispy. Do be careful here, there is an incredibly fine line between brown and crispy and burnt!

Wash and chop very fine the mint and coriander (it will look like a lot but don’t worry) and spread on top of the vegetables.

Get a grill or a griddle pan nice and hot and quickly cook the chicken. It won’t take long as they are quite thin. Once cooked chop into small pieces and spread on top of the rest of the salad ingredients.

Spoon the cooked shallots on top, no need to drain.

Pour the dressing all over the salad and serve.

Now here are a couple of other thoughts that I have:

Chinese cabbage would be great in this, after all being pickled is the best way to treat this vegetable as any Korean will tell you!

I also think some Chinese vermicelli noodles would be good. I would boil them as per instructions, refresh under cold water, drain and then put down on the platter first before placing all the other ingredients on top.

The chicken could very easily be substituted with prawns and / or pork. In fact I think this would be a great salad with left-over turkey.

I would also like to try substituting the crushed nuts with toasted rice. In a dry frying pan put about 1 tbsp uncooked rice and over a medium heat cook until nice and brown. Place in mortar & pestle and grind until you are left with a pretty coarse powder. Sprinkle over the salad instead of the nuts.

I would like to add this dish to my BBQ repertoire. It would be nice to have the whole salad prepared and on the table, then to quickly BBQ the chicken, chopped it up, throw it on top, spoon on the dressing and serve straightaway.

Enjoy!

Bean Sprout Salad

Ever walk past those little bags of green bean shoots in Spinneys and wonder what on earth you're expected to do with them? Try this, then. I tend to chop the vegetables relatively finely, but not too much for this quick and simple but nevertheless pleasant salad. The bean sprouts add a nice crunch and nutty flavour. Slide a couple of grilled chicken breasts marinated in a handful of Asian things (you know, bit of red chilli, some lime juice, dash of nam pla, scattering of chopped lemon grass and a shave of ginger and garlic) alongside this and, just to finish off, a pile of white, steaming rice. If you're feeling terribly arty, slip a sneaky thread of rujak over things when they're all plated up. And there’s dinner for two neatly out of the way…

Ingredients

1 medium red onion, chopped
4 tomatoes, deseeded & chopped
¼ cucumber, chopped
2 cups bean sprouts
2 red peppers, chopped

Vinaigrette
2 tbsp vinegar
4 tbsp lime juice
2 tbsp olive oil
1 red chili, chopped (no seeds!)
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 tsp salt

Mix the salad ingredients and blend the vinaigrette ingredients (best shaken in a bottle or shaker) and then toss the salad and vinaigrette.