Salad ideas
I break salads down into 4 groupings and take one thing from each grouping to make the salad. I don’t have a salad recipe, I have a matrix of combinations I adjust for the occasion. Add the carbohydrate/protein section to make it a light lunch, or exclude to have as a starter. Select the flavour theme to match with any other dishes it is going with. I use mostly cupboard ingredients or whatever salad ingredients are available.
Base: Tomatoes, cucumber, cabbage, carrots, lettuce, baby leaf, rocket (2 or more from here)
Protein/carbohydrate 1: butterfly chicken, hot smoked salmon, Halloumi (griddled), croutons
Protein/carbohydrate 2: nuts (pine, cashew, walnut)
Flavour:
1. Basic (lemon, rosemary and olive oil – ratios . lemon juice to . olive oil and rosemary to taste)
2. Honey mustard (same as basic with 1 tsp honey and 1 tsp Dijon mustard added)
3. Mint yoghurt (2 parts yoghurt to mint leaves (blitzed), 1 clove garlic, 1 tblsp lemon juice) – if you don’t have lemon/mint leaves old fashioned mint sauce from a jar also works here. About 5 parts yoghurt to 1 part mint sauce)
4. Harissa honey (1 part harissa paste, 1 part honey, 1 part lemon juice) – this is to taste, it is a hot flavour, too hot for some. Reduce harissa if too spicy. This also works with slow roasted pork belly (add to pork belly at 160 C for 45 mins)
5. Pomegranate (2 parts pomegranate molasses, 2 parts olive oil, 1 part lemon juice, muscovado sugar to taste)
6. Satay (6 parts peanut butter, 4 parts lime juice, 4 parts soy sauce, 3 parts sesame oil, 0.5 parts grated ginger)
Notes:
Butterfly chicken – take 1 chicken breast, and cut in half so it looks like a heart (half thickness) loosely wrap in baking paper and whack with a rolling pin to make as thin as possible. This way one chicken breast goes quite a long way. This can then be marinaded in some the dressing for 20 or more mins before starting. Cook on a high heat for about 4 mins on each side till crispy.
Croutons – and left over bread/stale, cut into cubes soak in salt and rapeseed oil bake at 170 for 8 mins or so.