Chickpea and feta salad with babaganoush and croutons

 

OK could definitely do better with the pic, but it was tasty. Arizona's dish of the week .

The salad: plenty of chickpeas, cubed feta, cucumber, red onion, mint, parsley, lemon or lime, seasoning. 

The babaganoush: baked aubergine (cut in half first), mashed with cooked garlic (actually microwaved in the lemon juice), tahini, lemon juice, seasoning. 

The croutons: Yeah you need more croutons that that but all good. The chickpeas are carby too. 

Tasty schmasty. 

Moorish Crunch Salad

Nice one to have with the Moroccan chicken (next post).

Slice up:

• Apples 
• Carrots 
• Radishes (I couldn't find them so used 'crunchy combo' sprouting beans, was good) 

Add and toss with:

• raisins
• parsley and mint
• tahini and sherry dressing 

Sprinkle with:

• Sesame seeds. 

The pic is from the original cutting (from the 90s) but I'll take one of my own next time I make it. Hopefully. Everyone liked this one... apart from Flash who wouldn't get past the notion of having apple in a salad.

Tahini chicken and pumpkin salad

Marinade your chicken thighs (original recipe was breast but who grills breast FFS) in lemon juice, tahini and seasoning.

Bake your pumpkin slices (original recipe also to grill - grilled pumpkin is TRULY a bad idea) and layer over a salad with some nice tangy bits - original had mint but it wasn't nearly strong enough.

Make up some dukka with nuts and pank and seasoning.

Microwave up a pack of mini popadums to serve on the side.

Dress the salad, cut and put chicken on top, sprinkle on the dukka (or mix the dukka straight over the chicken after cutting. Or both.) .

Got good marks from the kids. A do-again.

Coco's Salad

Remarkably like a Caeser salad, with the difference that Coco makes it so Arizona will eat it.

Bag of leaf mix
A bit of shredded cabbage
Cubed stong cheddar
Good handful of chopped mixed nuts
Cubed cucumber
Lots of large garlic crutons
Served with standard coleskaw dressing

Chunky Bean and Sausage Salad

• White beans
• A couple of sausages
• Salad stuff
• Noodles


This was meant to be ‘sausage and white bean salad’ but I chucked in a whole load of julienned veg like carrot and daikon, as well as beans, lettuce and a bunch of noodles. Squeeze the sausage out of its casing and fry like savoury mince, mix with the beans, flavour as you wish (we went Oriental on this one with chilli and coriander but depends what you feel like). Together with the noodles makes a great lunch.

Green Papaya Salad

• 6 mint leaves, finely chopped
• 1.5 tbs lime juice
• 1.5 tbs fish sauce
• 1 tsp caster sugar
• 1 tsp finely grated ginger
• 1 small red chilli, seeded and finely chopped
• 1 green papaya
• 2 tsp sesame seeds
• handful of coriander leaves


Mix mint with lime, fish sauce, sugar, ginger and chilli. Pell papaya and remove seeds. Finely julienne or grate the flesh. Mix with dressing and put in serving bowl. Lightly dry-fry the sesame seeds and toss over the salad together with the coriander. Serve.

Fennel, chickpea, parsley and green olive salad

• 2 fennel bulbs, trimmed and finely shaved
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 80ml olive oil
• 400g tin of chick peas
• 10 green olives , chopped a bit
• 2 tbs coarsely chopped parsley

Marinate the fennel in the liquids of ten minutes before adding the rest. Serve.

Fenel and blood orange salad

Slice your oranges (or ruby grapefruit, in this case) into bit-size chunks, and arrange on plate with thinly-sliced fennel.

Add rocket, black olives. Drizzle over with olive oil lightly. Tasty-zingy-yummy.

Greek 'Shepherd's' Salad with Feta

Don't know why this is particularly pastoral (except perhaps for the feta thing) but it's DAMN tasty, really recommend it with the Braised Chicken with Lemon and Honey (or indeed, just on its own - I could eat this till the sheep come home).

Combine: a tin of chickpeas, a good-size cucumber (non-seed variety), a decent chunk of feta, a bit of flat-leaf plasley (actually we fogot this, it was lovely without), 1 chopped green pepper, and a good handful of black olives. Dress them in a standard and pedestrian manner, and serve.

This is a truly excellent salad. It's so delicious and moreish you quite forget how healthy it is - which is, sickeningly healthy.

We had it with the Lemon and Honey chicken and it goes perfectly.

Barbecued Prawns with Melon, Spinach and mint Salad

Well we also served these with quite a few other things but actually the best ones were as follows:

Skewer your prawns, either shelled or not. We found shelled and marinated in a mix of garlic, sesame oil, ginger, soy and honey was pretty good. Barbie.

Cube your 'rock melon' (I think it's honeydew in the UK), mix with baby spinach leaves and a small amount of fresh mint. No dressing necessary at all.

We also did a dip of garlic, olive oil, and basil. The mild flavours seemed to set off the prawns admirably. Recommend.

Also served with a side of roasted whole sweet potatoes, simply sliced lengthways when very done and buttered and seasoned. Then sliced into …. well, slices. We're not technical here.

Deliriously engaging dish. Palate-ticklingly tasty. Enjoy.

Panzanella (bread salad)

Lovely salad that we had with the octopus and rocket (below). I'd thoroughly recommend it when you want some greens but also want just that little bit of carb to kick things in, the bread is much more amenable to absorbing flavours and juices than, say, potatoes, and is lovely for an added texture as well. Very simple, just:

Get some nice tomatoes (as nice as you can get), and cut them up with some cucumber, tear in a good load of basil, dress (plain on salt-olive-oil-pepper-balsamic), then toss in nicely crisped croutons. Was meant to be sourdough in my recipe but I was too mean to shell out specially for it so we just toasted a Vietnamese Roll all cut into chunks - was divine. That's it. Don't be fooled by the simplicity, it's great - try it!

Rocketing Cephalopods (a.k.a. Octopus and Cuttlefish Salad)

Fantastic stuff, much recommended. We mixed the two different ones as they only had one octopus at the fish market when we went, but actually it’s a nice combo.

For the octopus –

Clean, segment more or less, and you’re meant to marinate in thyme, lemon juice oil and wine ... but we didn’t get round to it. I would recommend doing it though. We were short of time so we pressure cooked it. Stuck it in a broth of red wine, bit of oil, seasoning, thyme, lemon (well more or less like the marinade would have been) and cooked away for a good half hour of pressure so it’s all nice and tender. Then drain, and set aside.

For the cuttlefish –

Clean, and cut into long ‘worms’ sideways on – and marinade briefly in lemon juice, olive oil and seasoning. We just left it sitting while the octopus was busy in the pressure cooker.

Once you’ve got the cooked octopus and the marinated cuttlefish, grill them all on the barbie. (or flash fry, if you’re in colder climes).

Meanwhile, wash some rocket, and arrange on a plate. Also prepare a dressing, we went with:

Lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper, a smidge of garlic paste, a bit of dill paste, a bit of chilli – anything to give a bit of zing and a bit of lift, choose as you please.

Serve the cephalopods dumped on top of the rocket and spoon on the dressing as you please yourselves individually. Gosh this was good, and went exceptionally well with Panzanella (which I shall endeavour to stay awake to type out too).

Courgette Ribbon Salad

You've seen this before no doubt with additions of carrot, possibly steamed, all the like. Well it's fine on its own as well, and quite raw. Use your potato peeler to great effect to cut thick, long ribbons of courgette - probably avoid the seedy middle bit. Dress - pleb salt oil pepper and balsamic works beautifully. Serve.

Asian-ish Slaw

Actually very nice indeed. Usual slaw base of grated carrot and finely shredded white cabbage. Ah but it's the dressing. Good dollop of peanut butter (yes, peanut butter), and loosen it up with plenty of lime juice and a bit of balsamic vinager. Pop in a spoon of sugar or so to taste. Bit of salt too. Bit of oil - was meant to be sesame but we didn't have any yet so I just used olive - was fine. Dress your salad and add some salted peanuts. Cruncha-yuumalisious.

Minty Watermelon Salad

Just that. We were short on salad materials (or so I thought) so I looked up watermelon salad and it apears that this is a modern staple. Very nice - only mainly they serve it with feta. Now I'm not sure about feta, but I'd do halloumi - and black olives would be nice as well. Or you can do it with basil if the mint is too strong for you. Cube your melon and add ingredients as desired.

Seared Squid with Citrus and Mango Salad

Prepare:

• A mango, peeled and sliced.
• Squid tubes (about 1 largish one per person, depending on how hungry you are) - sliced down the side and into halves, then criss-crossed
• A mix of 1 tsp Nam Pla, 1 tbs soy sauce, juice 1/2 lime, and plenty of chopped fresh coriander
• 1/2 a red onion, finely diced.
• Some salad leaves of your choice.

Then:

• Gently fry the onion and once it's soft add it to the fish sauce mix.
• Arrange the salad leaves (no need to dress) (the salad that is - the rest is your choice) and the mango on plates.
• Fry the squid rapidly on a high heat (or barbecue) - take off heat as soon as it curls up. Should be no more than 3 minutes max. Don't cram them, fry or grill in batches if necessary.
• Return all the squid to the pan, add the fish sauce mix and stir. Take off the heat at once and arrange over the plated salad, pouring over the pan juices. Serve with wedges of lime.

You wouldn't believe how filling this is, and no carbs to speak of! Lovely, recommended.