Bulgur Salad with Arugula, Zucchini, and Pine Nuts

Lately, whatever it is that Russ Parson writes about for the LA Times is what I want to cook. There was the story about eggs for dinner and then the one about comparing vegetable dishes from Plenty and A Year in My Kitchen. Most recently, it was a story about grain salads. I know, that might not sound terribly exciting, but he went about describing ways to put vegetables and grains together and how to cook different grains for salad use, and I was hooked. It helped that I already really liked grain salads, but the three specific recipes included in the story were all great for light, summer meals. I picked the bulgur salad because it was a chance to do something new and different with zucchini. Here, that new and different thing was actually leaving the zucchini raw. It was chopped, salted, allowed to drain, and then rinsed, dried, and added to the salad. Another new and different thing in this recipe was toasting the bulgur wheat. I usually use bulgur for tabbouleh, and I always just add boiling water and let it soak. Parsons suggested toasting the bulgur in a dry pan first and then pouring water into the hot pan and leaving the bulgur to soak. The flavor difference was big, and I’ll be toasting bulgur from now on.

So, toasting the bulgur only takes about five minutes and is probably easier than boiling water. The bulgur was placed in a dry saute pan over medium-high heat and was left for about five minutes. Cold water was added to the hot pan, the bulgur was stirred, and it was left to soften. It could take about an hour for the bulgur to soften, but mine was ready in about 35 minutes. Meanwhile, a couple of zucchini were chopped into big chunks and placed in a colander. The zucchini was liberally salted and left to drain. After 30 minutes, it was rinsed and dried. To make the salad, the bulgur was placed in a big mixing bowl with minced onion, the zucchini, lemon juice, olive oil, arugula leaves, and toasted pine nuts. Once combined, the salad was ready.

It’s a fresh and light salad, but the bulgur and pine nuts give it some heft. And, don’t think for a minute that this is just a boring, whole grain, healthy dish. The onion and lemon give it zing, the zucchini and pine nuts bring crunch, and toasting the bulgur added even nuttier flavor from the grain. The flesh of the salted and rinsed zucchini had become a little softer than when raw but it mostly retained its texture. I’m looking forward to getting creative with more toasted grain and fresh vegetable combinations or maybe whatever Russ Parsons writes about next.

Chickpea and Arugula Salad with Creamy Cumin Dressing and Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Everything about this is going to be quick. This salad was quick to make, and there aren’t many ingredients to discuss, but that’s why it’s worthy of mentioning at all. The recipe appeared in the August 2010 issue of Food and Wine as part of a story about speedy party menus. This really can be made in a few minutes time, and it really does taste more complicated than that. I believe the most challenging step in the preparation was slicing some green onions or maybe washing the arugula. But, if you arrange the salad on a big platter, it makes an incongruously grand presentation.

For the dressing, just whisk together some plain yogurt, cumin, minced garlic, lime juice, and white balsamic vinegar. Add rinsed and drained, canned chickpeas to the dressing and stir to combine. See, nothing is even remotely difficult here. Wash and spin dry some baby arugula leaves and arrange them on a platter. Top the arugula with the chickpea and dressing mixture. Slice some green onions and scatter them over the top of the chickpeas. Then, sprinkle about some roasted pumpkin seeds. That’s it, and you have a great-looking salad full of interesting flavors.

Certainly, you could use baby spinach leaves or some other kind of baby greens in place of the arugula if you were so inclined. However, since there are only a few things being put together here, they do all play important roles and arugula’s pepperiness mingled well with the cumin in the dressing. Interestingly, the salad looked huge spread out on a big serving platter, but that big platter was soon empty. Sometimes the best things are the easiest.

Red Rice Salad with Blueberries

I just learned about AmazonEncore which is a new publishing program that re-introduces overlooked books to wider audiences. Books are chosen based on customer reviews and are then re-published and distributed via Amazon, the Kindle Store, Audible.com, and independent bookstores. I was sent a review copy of The Berry Bible by Janie Hibler which is a James Beard Foundation book award nominee and was just re-released by AmazonEncore. It’s part berry encyclopedia covering every berry you can name and several you might not know and part recipe book including sweet and savory dishes for all those berries. And, you could win a copy of the book. Just leave a comment with your email on this post before Saturday 24 July 2010 at 8:00am when I’ll randomly select a winner and contact that winner for mailing information. AmazonEncore will ship the book anywhere, so this giveaway is open to everyone.

As I read through the encyclopedia portion of the book, I learned the differences between highbush blueberries, the kind that grow in Texas and many other parts of the US, and lowbush blueberries which are found in the northeastern US and in British Columbia. I also learned about cloudberries which grow in sub-arctic regions and have a very high level of vitamin C. Jostaberries are a hybrid of currants and gooseberries, and the information about every berry’s history, habitat, and common names in different parts of the world can be found here. The types of recipes you’ll find are categorized by beverages, breads, soups and salads, main courses, sauces, preserving, frozen treats, pies and tarts, cakes, and other sweet treats. A few dishes caught my eye like grilled paprika chicken with blackberry sauce, American barbeque sauce made with marionberries or blackberries, blueberry and toasted walnut conserve, spicy cranberry-horseradish relish, and chocolate-espresso hazelnut cake with raspberry glaze. There are recipes for all seasons as frozen and dried berries are mentioned in addition to fresh. I was intrigued by the savory use of berries in the salads and main courses, and my first stop was the red rice salad with blueberries.

I used red jasmine rice, but I think brown rice would be delicious here as well. The cooked rice was cooled and combined with toasted hazelnuts, dried cranberries, dried chopped apricots, and minced red onion. The dressing was made with lime juice, honey, ginger, lime zest, olive oil, and salt and pepper. The dressing was added to the salad with fresh blueberries which were gently folded into the mix. Then, the rice salad was served over lightly dressed salad greens. It seemed like this might be a rather sweet salad with so much dried fruit in addition to the fresh blueberries, but the onion and olive oil balanced the flavors well. The varied textures from chewy fruits to crunchy nuts and the mix of sweet, tart, and savory tastes made this salad great. Now, I’m thinking ahead to fall when I can try the persimmon, apple, and pickled cranberry salad and to next spring for the roasted asparagus with raspberry vinaigrette.

UPDATE:
Random number generator selected "10." Esi from Dishing Up Delights has won the book. Congratulations Esi!

Tomato and Watermelon “Tartare” with Goat Cheese-Pistachio Vinaigrette

I was invited to attend a class taught by Chef David Bull at the Central Market cooking school, and the topic of the class was vegetarian dishes and wine pairings. David Bull doesn’t usually focus on vegetarian cooking as you can see in his dinner menu at Bolla at the Stoneleigh Hotel in Dallas, but he’s always happy to prepare vegetarian tasting menus upon request and there is always a vegetarian option or two on his menus. During the class, Bull spoke about textural contrast in food and recognizing ingredients for inherent flavors and balancing them. He also demonstrated some interesting knife techniques like holding the handle up and the point down when slicing avocados to prevent the slices from sticking to the blade. He created seven dishes for the class: avocado mousse with sprouts jicama jalapeno and grapefruit, cucumber summer rolls with yellow curry and coconut, white gazpacho with red grapes soy milk and toasted almonds, tomato and watermelon “tartare,” watercress salad with Texas peaches and buttered brioche, daikon noodles with green beans, and potato gnocchi with oven roasted tomatoes and black olive oil. (gazpacho, peaches, summer roll, and gnocchi are shown below)

This fall, Bull will be opening two new restaurants in Austin. Congress will be a fine dining, dinner-only restaurant, and Second at Congress will be a more casual spot with patio and terrace seating serving brunch, lunch, and dinner. Connecting the two will be Bar Congress serving appetizers and cocktails. Bull mentioned he’s working with farmers to determine how much of the menus can be sourced locally. You can also find Bull’s cuisine in an interactive format. His online cookbook is called Bull’s Eye on Food, and you can search recipes by title, type, or ingredient. Once you choose a dish to prepare, you can enter the number of people you’ll be serving, and the quantities in the ingredient list will be re-calculated for that number. It will also generate shopping lists and even send the list to a smart phone. The other nice interactive feature of this book is that new recipes are added all the time. The vegetarian dishes prepared for the class were added just after being presented.

I sampled and enjoyed all of the dishes from the class, although the wine pairings didn’t uncover any new favorites for me. The white gazpacho was surprisingly good because of how well-balanced it was. I expected something a bit on the sweet side, but instead it was crisp, cool, a little tangy, only slightly sweet, and was delightful with the almonds on top. The cucumber rolls were fresh, crunchy, and light. I considered making those with some added stick-like pieces of tofu. And, the watercress salad with peaches and buttered brioche with a peach puree and red wine vinegar sauce was outstanding. That would be a beautiful brunch dish. Last, I was thrilled to watch the gnocchi being prepared as I’ve lived in fear of attempting to make it myself for so long. I think I’m almost ready to try it now. But, the dish I had to try right away to make at home was the tomato and watermelon "tartare." It was summery and brightly-flavored with hints of savoriness from shallots and red onion. The goat cheese dressing was delicious as was the pistachio vinaigrette, and when the two were swirled together with a bite of the tartare, it was excellent.

While demonstrating this recipe, Bull explained that he was including chef’s techniques and that a home version could be simplified. I chose to make a simplification or two; I admit it. I didn’t bother preparing the tomato concasse. I left it unpeeled and just seeded it. I did make the watermelon rind pickles, but my julienne on them and on the celery pieces could have been thinner. I was happy with the ring-molded shape of the salad, and pressing excess liquid from the contents of the mold, as instructed, is necessary for it to hold together well. Then, it’s very pretty on the plate with a sprinkling of chopped pistachios and the dressings drizzled here and there. The complete, chef-version of the recipe is below.

recipe re-printed with Chef's permission
Tomato and Watermelon "Tartare" with Goat Cheese-Pistachio Vinaigrette

tartare:
3 heirloom tomatoes
1 1/2 c seedless watermellon, small diced, rind reserved for celery salad
1 tablespoon shallots, brunoise
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons parsley, finely chopped
1 teaspoon sea salt

-prepare the tomatoes concasse by blanching them, shocking them in cold water, peeling the skins, seeding them, and then dicing them.
-in a small mixing bowl, combine all the ingredients and season with salt

pickled watermelon rind:
1/2 cup watermelon rind, peeled and all red fruit removed, julienned
1/4 cup champagne vinegar
1/4 cup sugar

-combine the vinegar and sugar in a sauce pan and bring to a boil. reduce mixture by half and chill completely.
-pour the chilled mixture over the watermelon rind in a bowl and allow to sit for 20-30 minutes.
-remove the rind and drain the liquid. reserve the rind for the celery salad.

celery salad:
1 cup celery hearts, loosely packed
1/2 cup celery, finely julienned
1/2 cup pickled watermelon rind
1/8 cup red onion, fine julienne
2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon sea salt

-in a small mixing bowl, combine all of the ingredients.

goat cheese dressing:
1/2 cup goat cheese, crumbled
1/3 cup water
1 teaspoon sea salt

-mix all ingredients together in a small mixing bowl until completely. should be the consistency of yogurt.

pistachio vinaigrette:
1/4 cup pistachios, toasted, salted, and ground
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon sea salt
lemon juice, to taste

-toast pistachios in a 350 degree F oven for about six minutes. remove from oven, season with salt, and grind them in a food processor until finely crumbled. reserve some ground pistachios for garnish.
-mix the remaining pistachios with the rest of the ingredients in a small mixing bowl until completely combined.

assembly:
-place the tartare into ring molds and press with a clean kitchen towel (or paper towel) to release some of the juice. unmold the tartare onto plates.
-top tartare with celery salad and toasted, ground pistachios.
-drizzle the goat cheese dressing and pistachio vinaigrette around the plate and serve.

Black Bean and Quinoa Salad

In the December Food and Wine, there was a story about Boston chef Ken Oringer and the tailgate party he hosts on the day he cuts down his Christmas tree. The picnic menu for this party was a really good one, and I have to keep the pages I cut from the magazine because I’d like to recreate the entire thing some day. It included cubano sandwiches, this black bean and quinoa salad, mulled cider, an avocado, grapefruit, and hearts of palm salad, artichoke and spinach dip with spiced pita chips, and caramel pecan bars. Reading that list again just now made me a little hungry. Last week, I wasn’t ready to throw a picnic party and prepare all of that, but I had a plan for jibaritos and thought this salad would fit well with them. As usual, when I cook dried beans, I cook a lot of them at once. I planned ahead, cooked a lot of beans, set aside the amount needed for this recipe, and stored the extra beans in the freezer for future uses. With the black beans already cooked, prepping the salad was quick and easy.

First, the quinoa was cooked and then spread on a sheet pan to cool quickly. A dressing was made by whisking together sherry vinegar, soy sauce, lime juice, and a chopped chipotle chile, and then olive oil was incorporated. Sliced scallions, minced red onion, finely diced yellow pepper, and chopped cilantro were combined with the cooked and cooled black beans and quinoa. The dressing was poured over the mixture, it was tossed to combine, seasoning was checked, and that was it.

The salad is so full of flavor and varied textures you won’t even pause to think about how healthy it is. The chipotle added a little spiciness, and you could increase that and taste as you go while making the dressing. Obviously, you could change the vegetables in the salad, but the ones suggested were a nice mix of colors with the yellow pepper against the black beans and flecks of green cilantro and scallions here and there. This makes a very large quantity of salad, but it stores well in the refrigerator. It’s also great on a bed of arugula and topped with some crumbled feta, so I didn’t mind having a big bowl of it in the refrigerator for a few days.

Spaghetti with Spicy Clam Sauce

I have a new book to mention today, and I’ll probably be referencing it frequently. I had seen Stir: Mixing it Up in the Italian Tradition included on several best of 2009 lists, and I snapped it up as an impulse buy. I’m glad I did. The chef/author Barbara Lynch operates multiple eateries, a catering company, and a full service butcher shop in Boston which gives me more reasons to visit that city again one of these days. As the title implies, the dishes in the book are Italian-inspired, but here and there, you will find some French influence as well. For instance, it won’t be long before I try her brioche pizza, brioche!, with fried pistachios and honey or the one with black olive paste and fresh ricotta. She includes a recipe for fresh ricotta as well. Several of the salads are tempting me right now like the harvest salad with a variety of root vegetables and the fennel, cucumber, and green bean salad with roasted potatoes and creamy yogurt, but I had to try the bibb lettuce with creamy parmesan dressing and cheese crisps first. There are also chapters devoted to soups, seafood, fowl, meats, side dishes, and sweet treats, but the chapter I zeroed in on immediately was pasta. It won’t be long before I post about the orecchiette with cauliflower or the roasted corn and tomato lasagnettes, but for today, we have the spaghetti with spicy clam sauce.

For several of the pasta dishes in this book, Lynch recommends freshly made pasta, and this was one of them. Her fresh pasta dough recipe is a rich one with two whole eggs and four egg yolks, but the dough was a thing of beauty that was easily worked. My hand-cranked pasta machine only has cutters for fettuccine or spaghetti widths, so although linguine width was suggested here, I went with spaghetti. The sauce was started by steaming littleneck clams in white wine, and then removing them from the pot to let them cool a bit. The clams were removed from the shell, they were chopped, and the steaming liquid was strained. I kept a few clams in their shells as garnish. Olive oil was heated in a skillet, and the chopped clams and some minced garlic were added and cooked for a few minutes. Red pepper flakes were added to taste, and for me that meant a lot of red pepper flakes. The fresh pasta was boiled, drained, and transferred to the skillet with the clam sauce. For serving, the tossed pasta with sauce was drizzled with olive oil and a little lemon juice, and caution was thrown to the wind as grated parmigiano reggiano was suggested as a topping. Kurt, as usual, allowed no cheese near his shellfish, but I gladly sprinkled it over my plate.

We started our meal with the bibb lettuce salad with creamy parmesan dressing, and loved the thick, rich dressing over crisp, fresh leaves. The parmesan frico crisps brought nice texture and extra flavor to the salad too. Then, we moved on to the pasta, and fresh pasta is always kind of special and noticeably tasty, so of course it was delicious. However, remember those four egg yolks in addition to the two whole eggs in the pasta dough? They made this is a very enjoyable pasta, and the clams were fresh and feisty with the crushed red pepper. Whether you opt for the grated parmigiano topping or not, you’ll have a very good meal with this. Now, I have to flip through the book again and decide what I’ll be making next.

Warm Beet Salad with Parmesan Dressing

I’ve made it my mission to convert those who think they don’t like beets. With red, golden, and Chioggia, roasted, raw, and fried, there are so many ways to enjoy the humble beet that I think beets deserve a second chance or third or fourth. When Leela at She Simmers mentioned the beet challenge, I decided right away I had to contribute something. I almost always roast beets whole and then peel and chop them. More often than not, my roasted beets end up in a salad of some sort. I spotted this warm beet salad in the May issue of Living magazine. It’s very simple to assemble, and the flavors were eye-poppingly good. One more item of business: the pretty plate in the photo above was sent to me as part of a fun plate swap organized by Cheryl at A Tiger in the Kitchen. My new plate came from Heather at BodaciousGirl. Thanks Cheryl and Heather!

The beets were roasted with a splash of olive oil and a sprinkling of salt and pepper. Once removed from the oven and cool, they were peeled and sliced. A vinaigrette was made with shallots, Banyuls vinegar, and extra virgin olive oil. I was intrigued by the use of Banyuls vinegar, and I have another recipe that recommends it as well, so I splurged on purchasing a bottle even though it’s an expensive vinegar. It’s a French vinegar made from sweet wine, and the flavor is milder than typical red wine vinegar. Its taste is closer to wine than vinegar usually is but there is some acidity. Certainly, this salad would also be delicious with a vinaigrette made with another red wine vinegar, but the flavor of the Banyuls was very nice here. The vinaigrette was set aside while the parmesan dressing was made by warming cream, adding shredded parmesan, and stirring until smooth. There was supposed to have been some thyme in the cream and parmesan mixture, but my plants failed to survive the summer heat, and I forgot to buy thyme at the grocery store, so I skipped it.

The salad was assembled by placing the sliced beets on a platter, the warm parmesan cream dressing was spooned onto the beets, and then some arugula micro greens, and any baby greens could be used here, were strewn about on the warm dressing. Those greens were drizzled with the shallot vinaigrette, and last but certainly not least, some chopped pistachios were added. This could be the dish to change the minds of all the beet haters out there. If it’s the earthiness of the beet root that they object to, then they should taste beets with this simple, warm, parmesan dressing. The richness blends with the flavor of the beets in a lovely way, and the greens and vinaigrette perk up the salad and keep it from being too heavy while the pistachios add crunch and one more layer of flavor. I already like beets, but trust me, this is a really, really good beet salad.

Crispy Potato Salad

I think Donna Hay might be a food magician. Every recipe she presents is so pretty and seems so doable, and every time I make one of her dishes, it turns out great and never presents a problem. I cut several recipes from an issue of her magazine a few months ago, and when I look back through them I want to drop everything and start cooking. For instance, this salad was a simple mix of fresh spinach, crispy potato slices, and parmesan cheese. That was already a delicious mix of things, but all of that was topped with a creamy lemon dressing. It’s such a simple mix but so good all together. Kurt was thrilled with the crispness of the potatoes. He was sure they were going to become soggy once tossed with the spinach and topped with dressing. They didn’t become soggy at all. The salad really was pretty much perfect in every way.

To start, the potatoes should be thinly sliced, tossed with olive oil and celery salt, and then spread on a baking sheet. I used little yukon gold potatoes and sliced them on a Benriner. The slices were roasted for about 30 minutes total, and I turned them at the halfway point. Let the potatoes cool before combining them with spinach leaves and shredded parmesan. The creamy lemon dressing was made from sour cream, mayonnaise, and lemon juice. To keep the potatoes crisp, wait to drizzle the salad with the dressing after it’s on the plate.

I have to say: try this salad. The deliciousness to simple to prepare ratio here is unparalleled. We were grilling the night I made this. It was served as a side dish for my chicken and Kurt’s steak, and my chicken was far less interesting than this salad. Even the leftovers, in which the potatoes had finally become just a tad soggy, were a delight to have for lunch the next day. I should have made more because I wanted it for lunch again the day after that.

MangO Salmon Salad

The other day, I was contacted by Michelle of Bleeding Espresso about the O foods contest for Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month. The goal is to spread awareness by posting a recipe with a food that starts or ends with the letter O. I thought this sounded like a great idea for a great cause and started pondering what I could possibly submit. At the same time, I was perusing the Williams Sonoma Fish book and noticed an incredibly simple dish of pan-roasted salmon fillets in mango juice. I imagined that mango salmon could be placed on a crisp, fresh salad, and I realized that mango ends in O.

I wasn’t kidding about how simple this is, and there really isn’t much to the recipe. You simply place some salmon fillets in a glass dish and pour mango juice over them. Let the salmon sit in the mango juice for 20 minutes while you pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees F. Then, heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat, remove the salmon from the mango bath and dry each piece, and place the salmon flesh-side down in the skillet. Turn the heat down to medium and sear the salmon for five minutes. Carefully turn the fillets and place the skillet in the hot oven for about three minutes. Pour the mango juice from the glass dish into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Let the juice simmer for a few minutes to thicken slightly. Remove the skillet from the oven and pour the simmered juice over the salmon. Chopped garlic chives garnished the salmon, and since my garlic chive plants have flowers right now, I garnished with those as well.

For the salad, I made a lime shallot vinaigrette which was tossed with mixed baby lettuces. That formed a bed on each plate. While grocery shopping, I looked for something to sit in the center of the salad and found some delicate, little arugula micro greens that were locally grown at Bella Verdi Farms. Those were also tossed with some of the vinaigrette and were then placed in the center of the salad. Pieces of mango sauce-covered salmon were placed around the mound of micro greens. For contrast, flavor, and crunch, I sprinkled on thinly sliced red fresno chiles and green onions and some chopped cashews.

CONTEST RULES

O Foods Contest for Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month

September is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month, and for the second year in a row, Sara of Ms Adventures in Italy and Michelle of Bleeding Espresso are hosting the O Foods Contest to raise awareness of this important health issue.

There are TWO WAYS to take part in the O Foods Contest:

ONE: Post a recipe to your blog using a food that starts or ends with the letter O (e.g., oatmeal, orange, okra, octopus, olive, onion, potato, tomato); include this entire text box in the post; and send your post url along with a photo (100 x 100) to ofoods[at]gmail[dot]com by 11:59 pm (Italy time) on Monday, September 28, 2009.

PRIZES for recipe posts:

• 1st: Signed copy of Dolce Italiano: Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen by Gina DePalma, Executive Pastry Chef of Babbo Ristorante in NYC, who is currently battling ovarian cancer, inspired this event, and will be choosing her favorite recipe for this prize;
  
• 2nd: Signed copy of Molto Italiano: 327 Simple Italian Recipes to Cook at Home by Mario Batali (winner chosen by Sara);
  
  
• 3rd: Signed copy of Vino Italiano: The Regional Italian Wines of Italy by Joseph Bastianich (winner chosen by Michelle)

OR

TWO: If you’re not into the recipe thing, simply post this entire text box in a post on your blog to help spread the word and send your post url to ofoods[at]gmail[dot]com by 11:59 pm (Italy time) on Monday, September 28, 2009.

Awareness posts PRIZE:

• One winner chosen at random will receive a Teal Toes tote bag filled with ovarian cancer awareness goodies that you can spread around amongst your friends and family.

From the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund:

• Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death from gynecologic cancers in the United States and is the fifth leading cause of cancer death among U.S. women; a woman’s lifetime risk of ovarian cancer is 1 in 67.
  
  
• The symptoms of ovarian cancer are often vague and subtle, making it difficult to diagnose, but include bloating, pelvic and/or abdominal pain, difficulty eating or feeling full quickly; and urinary symptoms (urgency or frequency).



• There is no effective screening test for ovarian cancer but there are tests which can detect ovarian cancer when patients are at high risk or have early symptoms.
  
  
• In spite of this, patients are usually diagnosed in advanced stages and only 45% survive longer than five years. Only 19% of cases are caught before the cancer has spread beyond the ovary to the pelvic region.
  
  
• When ovarian cancer is detected and treated early on, the five-year survival rate is greater than 92%.
  

And remember, you can also always donate to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund at our page through FirstGiving!

Please help spread the word about ovarian cancer.

Together we can make enough noise to kill this silent killer.

Composed Salad of Roasted Broccoli, Romaine, Chickpeas, and Walnuts

A composed salad is like a mini, refined salad bar of your own. The refined part is evident in the obvious lack of a sneeze guard. The ingredients are prepped, possibly tossed with dressing, and arranged on a platter for each person to serve him/herself. You can choose how much of each item to include on your own plate, and arrange things as you choose. This particular composed salad was in the July issue of Living magazine. Reading the title alone made me sure this was a salad I wanted to eat, but then when I read the recipe, I found out there’s also a goat cheese puree and sherry vinaigrette that made it sound even better. The walnuts were supposed to have been candied with honey and some savory ingredients too, but I decided to omit the sweetness and keep them firmly in the savory category.

There are several little parts of preparation for this salad, but they’re all very simple and very worth doing. First, the broccoli was roasted with extra virgin olive oil and salt and pepper. Meanwhile, canned chickpeas were rinsed and drained and then added to a saucepan in which some chopped shallots had been sauteed. At the end of cooking the chickpeas, a teaspoon of sherry vinegar was added. Next, the goat cheese puree was made by pulsing fresh goat cheese, water, olive oil, and sherry vinegar in a food processor. Also, walnuts were roasted with garlic, lemon, olive oil, and salt and pepper. And last on the list was the vinaigrette made with dijon mustard, sherry vinegar, a tiny bit of honey, and olive oil. The only other item was the romaine which I chopped rather than leaving the leaves whole. I made the goat cheese puree, vinaigrette, and roasted walnuts in advance, so the actual dinner-time prep was very quick. The romaine and roasted broccoli were each, separately, tossed with some vinaigrette and placed on the platter. The warm chickpeas and roasted walnuts found places on the platter too. The goat cheese puree was spooned onto an open spot on the platter so items could be dipped through it, and extra puree was served in a small dish.

This salad had no chance of not being a winner. I was already a big fan of roasted broccoli, chickpeas, and goat cheese, and this brought them all together in a particularly enjoyable way. It’s a casual composition that can sit comfortably at room temperature. The leftovers made an excellent lunch as well, but be sure to pull them out of the refrigerator 20 minutes or so in advance so the vinaigrette can loosen up after being chilled. I’m already thinking about using the parts of this salad on their own. The goat cheese puree was a delicious dip with broccoli, and the lemony roasted walnuts with a hint of garlic flavor would make a great snack with cocktails.

Black Bean, Mango, and Jicama Salad with Citrus Vinaigrette

Ok, yes, this is another black bean recipe, and another salad, but I have a new book to talk about today, and it’s a really good one. Back in May, I learned of this book on the excellent Dana Treat site. Dana always has beautiful and delicious-looking vegetarian food to share on her site, and she highly recommended this book and the author’s other books as well. I wasn’t familiar with the author, Jeanne Lemlin, but I was instantly intrigued and soon thereafter added Vegetarian Classics to my collection. Lemlin explains that by ‘classics’ she means popular dishes that have become favorites in the vegetarian realm. Rather than referring to ethnically or historically accurate meatless cuisines, these classics may have been adapted from traditional recipes including meat but are now well-loved as vegetarian dishes. Because of a small back-log problem, I only just recently got around to reading the book and cooking from it. I always say this, but every recipe looked like something I’d like as I started reading the book. The first chapter is Basics, and the roasted red pepper and walnut pesto and sun-dried tomato pesto instantly had me planning meals for both. In Soups, the vegetable chowder, the Armenian barley yogurt soup, and the thick corn and vegetable soup with herb dumplings are on my list. Then came Salads, and I headed to the kitchen to try this black bean and mango salad before even finishing the chapter.

I used the last of my freezer stash of cooked black beans. They were rinsed and drained and added to cubed mango, jicama, finely diced onion, and chopped jalapeno. A citrus vinaigrette was made from lemon, lime, and orange juices, red wine vinegar, minced garlic, olive oil, and salt and pepper. The chopped salad ingredients were mixed with some vinaigrette, and it was left to become a little happier for 30 minutes or so. Just before serving, cilantro was added to the salad. I scooped the chunky salad onto a bed of baby spinach leaves and garnished with sliced red, cayenne chiles. It occurred to me while making this that it would also be a great wrap filling with some spinach and some cotija or monterey jack cheese.

As we were eating this for dinner, Kurt inadvertently gave me one of the best compliments he could have. He mentioned something about how canned beans tend to have that particular taste about them, but they seemed different and so much better than usual in this salad. He went on to comment on how he enjoyed all the ingredients and flavors in the salad and that he thought it worked really well. I let him know the beans weren’t from a can and agreed that the salad was a hit.

Chicken Salad with Yellow Squash, Lemon, and Pine Nuts

No, I’m still not done with salads. It’s only July, and all those salads I see in books and magazines continue to catch my eye. In the April issue of Food and Wine, there was an article about wine country recipes in which chefs from four different wine regions around the world presented dishes that pair well with their local wines. The regions represented were northern California, Mediterranean France and Spain, coastal Chile, and south Australia. This salad is from Armand Arnal of La Chassagnette outside Arles. Some interesting ingredients and flavors are combined in the salad, and I made one substitution but probably shouldn’t have. As you see in the title, my version of the salad included yellow squash, but zucchini was used in the original. As it happened, I had a yellow squash in the refrigerator but I had used all the zucchini. I thought it would be pretty much the same difference. The problem, however, was the color. You see, this salad also involves the use of preserved lemon, and once the lemon rind was sliced, it looked very much like the sticks of yellow squash. In fact, as Kurt was eating his salad, he started pushing the yellow things to the side of his plate and said that he didn’t require that much lemon. I had to explain that all that yellow stuff was squash which he then ate while realizing the actual quantity of lemon was just right.

The first step in preparing this salad was marinating the zucchini or squash in olive oil with thinly sliced garlic, cumin, lemon zest, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Plumped currants were added to the squash, and it was left in the marinade for two hours. At the same time, chicken was marinated in olive oil with minced shallots and lemon juice. Then, pine nuts were toasted, the chicken was sliced and sauteed, arugula was cleaned, and the preserved lemon peel was slivered. All of those items were then tossed in the marinade with the squash and currants. It came together very simply once the marinated items had been prepared and allowed to sit.

For a simple salad of some chicken on some leafy greens, there was actually a lot going on here in the flavor department. The pinch of cumin added an interesting hint of earthy spice, and the sweet currants balanced the peppery arugula. The lemon juice and preserved lemon peel were bright notes in the mix, and the marinated chicken made it all deliciously more substantial. This was a thumbs-up meal, and it’s going into the permanent file with one note: don’t willy-nilly substitute yellow squash for zucchini. My lesson of the day was to always remember that color can matter more than you might think in a dish.