Ensalada : Salad

 
Eat healthy once in a while. Then… add some cheese.  This is an at-home version of a salad that I used to do in a restaurant.

• Mixed salad greens (gourmet style blend)
• 1/2ed cherry tomatoes, cut horizontally (I put the halves face-up to catch the dressing, in the restaurant we put them face down)
• goat cheese (chevre) , slightly microwaved to just melt it a little (several small rounds or one slice of a big round) Cut chevre with a wire-style cheese slicer; there is no other practical way
• whole walnuts (not in the pic because I forgot them)
• reduced balsamic vinegar (take regular balsamic, boil a bottle's worth until reduced 2/3rds, add salt - or buy balsamic glaze [shudder])
• olive oil, virgin, first cold pressed – making sure to drizzle the face-up tomatoes
• a few flakes of Maldon salt

As you can see I was having fun with links.

Smoked Salmon Salad

It doesn’t get much easier than this.

Sure, it’s best if you smoke your own salmon and pick the greens fresh from your garden but I just popped down to the local grocer’s instead.

The only thing “made” here is the tartare sauce [tartar in the U.S.] which in this case is a continental version so we can be snobby and call it a remoulade. With either name it amounts to mayonnaise plus pickles and other stuff.

I used an off-the-shelf olive-oil mayonnaise since my mayonnaise-making fails at least half the time and I didn’t want the hassle.

It’s simple really; take a cup of the good-quality mayo, finely chop 2 Tablespoons each (when chopped) of

• shallots (really really fine)
• gherkin pickles (the tiny ones)

1 T of chopped

• capers (not at all fine because they turn to mush; just so they’re not whole)

and stir it into the mayo. Add a squeeze of lime juice (1/4 lime or there about).

Taste, add more of whichever thing it needs. Add some pickle juice or caper juice if it’s a real thick sauce; it ought to flow somewhat (see the picture with a puddle of sauce).

The salad is just some greens, a thin layer of the sauce, more greens, then the smoked salmon on top. This was done in one of those little circular forms to give it some structure. And extra sauce on the side.

If this was a real remoulade you’d add some fresh chopped tarragon, chervil and parley; chervil’s the key ingredient there.

Anyway… that’s it. Simple, fast, pleasing. What more could one ask?

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Rice Salad

Another easy one

2 parts rice (white, previously cooked – probably leftover), 1 part tuna, 1/2 part each of peas, corn and diced carrots (diced to pea/corn size).  Dizzle on olive oil (pure, virgin), salt, white pepper (go light on the pepper).

The quality of the tuna is sort of important here so get a good can – packed in oil, not water.

A Salad

Still with the lunches you might say. And well you might as that’s generally what I’ve been taking pictures of. Dinner tends to be yet less structured than the lunches; likely to be whatever I drag out of the refrigerator when I feel hungry around 10 or 11 at night.

Today it’s even a sort of healthy option; albeit that I moderated the healthiness by using a nice dressing and some cheeses.

Mixed greens (buy a bag – I can’t use it up fast enough or get a mix of different greens if I buy whole heads). Made this seem sort of like a ceasar salad by adding grated parmesan cheese to the dressing (made up of 3 parts oil, 1 of vinegar – whipped up with a fork to an emulsion – I should a smashed a garlic into it too). The croutons (the brown cubes) were lying about (which is what inspired the whole ceasar idea). The white cubes are of Queso de Burgos – one of those soft, fresh, cheeses that are so good for you. I don’t know if fresh (not hard) cheese is available in general supermarkets in Canada & the U.S. these days (it wasn’t when I lived there years ago) but it’s certain to be found in your ethnic latin markets.

A good balanced salad – with the cheese it’s got a a bit of protein too.

Salad for Lunch

Had a salad for lunch today.  Took off some time from the keyboard to put something on the stove.

¿On the stove? you ask? For a salad? Well… yes.  For the reduced balsamic vinegar.

Take a 250 ml bottle of balsamic vinegar [1/2 pint]; dump it into a frying pan; add a good pinch if salt; turn on the fan over the stove (‘cause it sort of stinks) and boil it down until it’s 1/4 of the volume.  There’s a magic moment when it goes from liquid to syrupy and the taste goes from acidic to sweet.  The salt’s important to make that sweet taste intensive.  Use a frying pan to have the maximum surface area to reduce quickly.

Once you have this reduced, set it aside to cool.

The salad bit is spinach, sprinkle on Maldon salt (better in salads that regular salt), drizzle on a tiny bit of extra virgin olive oil (to wash the salt down through the leaves), then the slices of goat cheese [chevre], drizzle a little more oil one (to make sure that the balsamic syrup drips prettily), then drizzle on the balsamic syrup and sprinkle on a touch more Maldon salt (more for decoration than anything).

That’s it.  You’ll have a load of balsamic syrup left over but it’s good  for all sorts of things; ice cream, for example.

Somehow I got a pretty good picture of this.  The secret I think is to use the macro mode  steady the camera really well (a phone actually in this case).

Summer Harvest Salad : Salad Messidor : Lesson 5 : Part 1 : LCB at Home

It's from the book Le Cordon Bleu: At Home - hurry and buy one for the full recipe; or try to follow my vague notes below.
Somehow I got this incredibly sharp image of the Messidor Salad, let's call it a summer salad to avoid the fancy French words ("messidor" meaning "summer harvest" in French) - - anyway, everything went right with the photography (now, if only I knew why or how). 
The dish? It's a bunch of veggies, in mayonnaise, in a big artichoke heart, sprinkled with chives.

It wasn't faultless, not at all - but damn pretty.
1st off, way too much mayo was called for (the French traditionally use a ton of mayonnaise) so I cut it back; 2nd, it needed more salt (my fault); 3rd, more pepper; 4th, I forgot to put the chives on for the plating (but did remember for the photo-shoot later on).; 6th, needed some lemon juice squeezed on to liven it up; 7th, there was way more salad than would fit in the artichoke hearts so the plating was mostly for show and there was a bowl of the salad, for sharing, on the side; 8th, was supposed to be plated on a bed of curly endive but I forgetfully bought head-lettuce instead (well, at least it was curly); 9th, used prepared artichoke hearts instead of preparing them from scratch (since the ones in the market were very much on the too small side); and, finally, 10th, the mayonnaise "broke" while making it the first time 'round (but I was able to "recover" it with a second attempt).
Other than that... just fine.  The consensus, on the flavour aspect of the dish, is that Le Cordon Bleu is not proving to be strong on salad-making.
It's a fine salad but not a killer spectacular one.
What was really done was:

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Summer Harvest Salad : Salad Messidor

Serves: 6

Ingredients

• artichoke hearts
• and a lemon for preparation
• green beans, 25 cm long pieces [1"]
• celery, batons (1/2 cm x 2,5 cm) [1/4" x 1"]
• cauliflower, florets, really tiny ones
• tomato, peeled, seeded, small bruinoise [diced evenly]
• mayonnaise
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 1/2 C olive oil
• dijon mustard
• salt
• white pepper
• red wine vinegar
• leaf lettuce (for the plating)
• chives (decorative, mainly)

Procedure

1. start with about 4 celery sticks, a large handful of green beans (1/3 #), 2 large tomatoes, and half a small cauliflower - - you ought to end up with equal amounts of each vegetable in the salad
2. Cook the artichoke hearts in boiling water with a quartered lemon until "done" (a knife slides into the bottom with little resistance)
• Cool on a rack, upside down so they drain
• Trim the bases so they stand/sit more or less flat
3. Cook the green beans in boiling water until just getting tender
• Drain and rinse in cold water to stop them cooking
4. Peel the "strings" off the celery and make into batons
• a potato peeler works
5. Prepare the peeled and seeded tomato in little cubes - as wide as the green beans and the celery.
6. Make the mayonnaise
1. 2 egg yolks, 1 T dijon, salt, pepper into a jar
2. with stick mixer and a few drops of oil, mix
3. when it's emulsified pour more oil slowly, patiently, into the mix
4. see Notes, below, for what went wrong for me
5. Add a tablespoon of red wine vinegar
7. Mix veggies and half the mayo (an hour or 2 before serving)
8. Serve on a bed of lettuce, in the artichoke hearts, drizzle with more mayo and sprinkle with chives

Done

Notes

1. Much of the charm of this is in the size of the veggies all being similar; the green beans and celery equal size, the cauliflower torn to florets as small as you can get them (about the width of a ft green bean), and the tomatoes a size similar to the florets.  Likewise, cut the chives
2. The mayonnaise "broke", that is, after going well for half the oil too much went in all at once and the oil stopped mixing properly with the egg.  It looks like a mess when that happens. 
   The fix is; switch to doing it with a hand whisk in a big metal bowl.  Break an new, whole, egg into the bowl; whisk until creamy, drizzle in 5 drops of the failed mayo; whisk until emulsified; add 10 drops of failed mayo, whisk; add 15 drops, whisk; you get the idea.
   It is tiring, all that whisking, but it works - - I recovered the failed mayonnaise in about 5 minutes (and 10 curse words) from the point of failure.

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Worth another, less spectacular quality, picture?

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