On the cold front: …and the green front

Fabulous Fattoush Salad

Making sure I cater for everyone's taste – try this on for size.

Fattoush is another Lebanese salad, this time cold.

You'll find different versions, all hit the spot, here's one of them :

Serves 4

200g radishes, sliced thinly

half a cucumber, diced

200g cherry tomates, halved

2 shallots, finely diced

Romaine lettuce, shredded into 1-2cm pieces

2tbsp chopped mint

100g Pomegranate Seeds

25g walnuts or pistachios, toasted and chopped

half green pepper, finely sliced

2 pitta breads

Dressing

2 cloves garlic paste

juice of half lemon

3 tsps sumac

150ml extra virgin olive oil

2 tbsp white wine vinegar

Mix the dressing and set aside.

With the exception of the pitta breads place all the remaining ingredients in a large salad bowl and mix gently. Add the dressing and toss the salad . Toast the pitta breads and then cut into small strips, add to the salad bowl and mix again.

I think pomegranate seeds look glorious in any dish, however not so enjoyable to eat - if you feel the same way you can omit the Pomegranate Seeds and use the Pomegranate Dressing (from the Halloumi and Pomegranate Salad) in place of the Dressing given above.

If you can't get hold of Romaine lettuce use Little Gem instead.

Happy slicing and dicing!

Don't do green?

I know there are many out there who quite simply “don't do green”. Salad doesn't necessarily have to be green – it doesn't have to be cold either, despite what the purists may say.

Lets expand the mezze concept - a mezze serves both hot and cold salads so why can't we. Furthermore what's wrong with mixing it up – or if you want to use modern speak - fusion of different culinary cultures to create your own style of larger “salad” sharing plates.

I'll stop waffling and illustrate with an example :

Potato and Olive Salad

Serves 4/6

500g new potatoes

3tbsp extra virgin olive oil

juice of ½ lemon

½ tsp paprika

½ tsp ground cumin

pinch of chilli pepper

salt

bunch of flat leaf parsley chopped

medium mild red or white onion, chopped finely

12 black olives

Peel the potatoes and boil them in salted water until tender. Drain and cut in half – quarters if large, leave whole if small.

Mix the oil with the lemon juice, paprika, cumin, chilli and salt.

While still warm turn the potatoes in the dressing, add the parsley, onion and olives and mix gently.

This recipe came from Claudia Roden's Arabesque. It is recommended that this recipe is made in advance so that the dressing and flavours are absorbed.

Why not tweak this recipe. Fry 200g of diced chorizo and use the delicious oil from it as part of your dressing adding an extra dimension and I think a worthwhile candidate for your first sharing plate shabang. What's wrong with Moroccan and Spanish – after all tapas is to Spain what mezze is to Morocco.

Why not serve it warm instead.

Please note no greenery – and I should clarify that the parsley in the recipe I class as garnish and technically not greenery – that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it – if you're really anti then you can always leave the parsley out but you might want to break the habits of a lifetime and try it.

An added bonus – this salad dish can be vegetarian or not!

Love 'em or hate 'em.. salads

Love 'em or hate 'em

… salads

Defined as …. “a cold dish of vegetables or herbs (either raw or pre-cooked) generally mixed, with or without oil and vinegar or other dressing, sometimes including egg, meat, fish etc.” This is a kind and generous definition!

If you mention the word “salad” it conjures up different images for different people.

If you are of a certain age, as an example, there's a vision of a limp lettuce leaf, a slice of boiled egg – ditto of tomato and lets not forget cucumber. Traditionally, this not so tasty morsel was served – I use the term loosely – on Saturday or Sunday “teatime”. If you were expecting visitors for tea and wanted to really push the boat out then you'd add a tin of pink salmon, bones and all!

I remember saying that I was scarred for life from the buffet experience in the 70ies. My recollections of salad for tea come a very close second.

You have to bear in mind that in those days no-one had heard of such exotic ingredients like avocado let alone served on a salad plate.

We are creatures of habit and cold food means warm weather, sadly in the UK our weather is so unpredictable – how many times have you planned to eat al fresco and been relegated indoors, drenched and freezing! May be our aversion to salads emanates from lousy weather.

One bad habit we have is we don't take enough time to enjoy our food – “graze” is not a particularly attractive word – I can't help but see a field full of cows – but food should be savoured and enjoyed over a period of time, so perhaps we need to go back to basics and change our perception of “salad”.

In the coming posts we'll explore and see if we can turn the tide a little and revive our tired salad brains.

Class Time - What the Ladies had to say

Thank you so much for a wonderful experience.  Food was fab and so good to try something a little different especially when it is someone else's gamble.

Halloumi & Pomegranate Salad

Delicious …

Perfect sharing starter – good for sittiing around a table chatting …

Great warm salad – good starter for all to sit round and just dip into – loved the dressing …

Excellent food and ideas …

The starter was brilliant – so tasty – will be so handy …

Superb – what more can I say?

Slow cooked leg of pork

with Calvados cream sauce

The sauce and meat was delicious …

Inspiration, value, excellent  ...

Pork can be dry and I would always have put gravy with it but the cream sauce was beautiful and velvety and the earthy vegetables made a beautiful plate of food …

Simple dish but really tasty …

Really easy and absolutely lovely

Chocolate Truffle no churn ice cream

Calorie free and guilt free!!! -  NOT  ...

Something to indulge in on those days when the family needs to be indulged …

10/10 ...

Didn't want to stop eating it!! …

Very rich – easy to do.  Can do other variations with mint chocolate or even without chocolate chunks …

Wicked and so yummy …

Thank you for taking so much time and effort in arranging a wonderful evening plus you are so patient with your audience!

Class Time - The Ice Cream

Remember the recent post for the Chocolate truffle no-churn ice cream taken from “delicious.” magazine March issue - here's another alternative. All you need to do is substitute the milk chocolate, chopped into small chunks with a 125g bag of Terry's chocolate orange minis - they are miniature segments of “whole chocolate orange” fame – cut the segments in half and fold into your ice cream mixture. They are widely available in all the major supermarkets.

Check out these cute pots – I wanted the ice cream to look good and I think these do the trick – you'd never believe they are paper baking cases and not ceramic but I thought they'd make perfect disposable ice cream pots. They are sold in different colours – fuscia, pale pink, pale blue and what you see below – aqua. 60mm – 24 pack - £2.95.

For those who live in the Northamptonshire, UK area and in particular Finedon, there's a hidden gem called SCS Packinging – Units 1 & 2 Orchard Road, Finedon, Wellingborough, NN9 5JG – 01933 681681 - email : sales@scspackaging.co.uk – www.scspackaging.co.uk.

They have a small shop open to the public – or should I say Aladdin's cave! If you want anything packaging related or cake making stuff, from boards of every shape and size to paste, decorations and a fab selection of great quality serviettes – this is the place for you!

P.s. Want to make the most of your ice cream treat? Did you know that you can unroll the rim of the pot, open it out like a flower – turn it inside out and lick it clean of ice cream.

How much fun would that be!

Class Time - The Sauce

Before you begin to make your sauce, time for the leftover veggies – try and make sure your parsnips and potatoes are of a similar size. Place in a foil tray and drizzle with rapeseed or similar oil and season with salt and black pepper. Pop into a pre-heated oven 200c/180fan/Gas 6 for 25 minutes to allow them to finish roasting and become crisp.

Calvados cream sauce

15g unsalted butter

15g plain flour

1 tsp garlic paste or 1 clove, crushed

glug of Calvados

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

200ml stock

300ml double cream

salt and black pepper

Melt the butter, take the pan off the heat, add the flour and whisk. Return to the heat and cook out the flour for 2/3 mins, stirring continuously – add the garlic paste and mustard and then, on a high heat, add the Calvados – cook on high for 1-2 mins. Add the cold stock straight into the sauce and whisk until smooth, then cook on a low heat for 10 minutes. Season with salt and black pepper.

Add the cream and simmer for 5 minutes.

Serve in bowls with the veggies and then the pork and drizzle with your sauce.

This sauce re-heats very well so you could make ahead, cover and fridge.

Class Time - The Main

Halloumi and Pomegranate Salad

Slow cooked leg of pork

with Calvados cream sauce

Chocolate truffle and orange no churn ice cream

You've already seen the Halloumi and Pomegranate Salad in “My mezze … contribution that is” … I think I'll let the Ladies do the talking!

… the main

This dish would be ideal for mid week. If you subscribe to the multi-tasking method when you're spending time in your kitchen, prepare more veggies and par boil or roast them - whatever you fancy – for the sake of this exercise I par boiled parsnips and potatoes.

Slow cooked pork with

Calvados cream sauce

1.5kg ish joint of pork – boned and rolled

1 vegetable stock pot/cube

generous sprinkle of dried herbs – sage or

thyme

2 tsps of garlic paste

Place your pork in the slow cooker and, if you are using a stock pot, mix the garlic and stock together and spread over the joint. Sprinkle with herbs. Switch your slow cooker on low and leave it for 8 hours.

Here it is :

In readiness for the sauce, you'll need to reserve approximately 200ml of stock from the cooked pork - strain, cover and fridge until cold and ready for use.

It looks good enough to eat!