Smoked mackerel and potato salad

Mom, who grew up eating smoked eel in the Netherlands, brought us a smoked mackerel recently. I had a reason to try out a recipe from Australian chef Bill Granger's cookbook Bills Breakfast, Lunch + Dinner that I had always coveted. This is the first cookbook that S ever bought for himself, back in 2004, and since then we've cooked from it often. Bill's recipe calls for smoked trout, but we substituted mackerel. You could serve this salad with any smoked fish and it would still be delicious.

Smoked mackerel and potato salad

Inspired by Bill Granger's Bills Breakfast, Lunch + Dinner

Serves 4

100 ml olive oil

50 ml lemon juice

1 Tbsp red wine vinegar

1 clove garlic, minced

a few shakes of sea salt

ground black pepper

2 Tbsp chopped mint

1/4 cup chopped parsley

1/4 cup sliced green onions

1 stalk celery, diced

1 Tbsp capers, whole

500 g baby potatoes

250 g smoked mackerel, skin and bones removed

5 oz arugula

Make the dressing: Dissolve the salt in the red wine vinegar. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil, whisking constantly to emulsify. Whisk in the remaining dressing ingredients: lemon juice, garlic, pepper, mint, parsley, celery and capers. Set aside.

Cook the potatoes: Cut the baby potatoes in half and put them in a pot on the stove. Cover them with cold water by about an inch. Add half a teaspoon of salt to the water. Turn the heat to high and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for about 15 minutes, or until a fork can easily poke through them. Drain the potatoes. Toss the potatoes in the dressing while they are still warm and set aside.

Plate the salad: Arrange a layer of arugula on four plates. Gently layer the dressed potatoes over the arugula. Top with the smoked mackerel. 

Roasted pepper, goat cheese and chicken salad

This refreshing salad was perfect for lunch this week. Start with a couple of fistfuls of baby arugula in a salad bowl. Top with roasted red and yellow peppers, knobs of soft unripened goat's cheese and shredded rotisserie-roasted chicken meat. Dress with your favourite olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette.

Mâche salad with chicken, egg and tomatoes

I made this for lunch using leftover meat from a store-bought rotisserie chicken. I just added a hard-boiled egg, some tomato, an interesting lettuce leaf called mâche, and tossed it in a simple red wine vinaigrette, the same one I used for salade niçoise.

Mâche salad with chicken, egg and tomatoes

serves one

a handful of mâche leaves
one hard-boiled egg, quartered
one tomato, sliced into eighths
one chicken breast, sliced

vinaigrette
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
a pinch of Dijon mustard
one clove garlic, minced
a shake of cracked black pepper
100 ml olive oil 

Mix the vinaigrette and set aside. Wash and dry the mâche leaves and place in the salad bowl. Add the tomato and chicken to the salad bowl. Add the vinaigrette and toss the salad. Plate a single serving and top with the hard boiled egg slices. Season with salt and pepper and serve. 

Salade niçoise

The other day I watched an episode of Poirot where he ate a salade niçoise to "nourish the little grey cells" (The Tragedy at Marsden Manor for all you fans). I had to make it! I assembled it on Saturday morning and we ate it for lunch.

It saves time if you already have hard-boiled eggs and cold cooked potatoes in the fridge. I tossed almost every ingredient separately in some of the vinaigrette before composing the salad.

Salade niçoise is a composed salad, meaning ingredients are placed beside each other instead of tossed. I think it's a more interesting way of eating because it turns the salad into a more tapas-like experience. Composed salads have also been the subject of some very engaging culinary writing. I found this article in The Guardian and this one in the NY Times. 

It might be hard to tell by the picture but it was a very big salad and we surprised ourselves by eating the whole thing in one sitting!

Salade niçoise
serves two

two handfuls green beans, topped and tailed
10-12 cold cooked little red potatoes, halved
two tomatoes
half a red onion, sliced
two eggs
handful quartered marinated artichoke hearts
handful marinated Kalamata olives
four anchovies from a jar
flaked tuna from a jar
one Boston lettuce head, leaves lightly torn

vinaigrette
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
a pinch of Dijon mustard
one clove garlic, minced
a shake of cracked black pepper
100 ml olive oil

Mix the vinaigrette and set aside. Fill a big bowl with ice and water.

Blanche the green beans for two minutes in boiling water until bright green. Remove from the boiling water with a sieve spoon and put in the ice water to stop the cooking process. Set the beans aside.

Using the same pot of boiling water, skin the tomatoes. Cut a small "X" in the skin at each end. Add the tomatoes to the boiling water for 30 seconds. Then put them in the bowl of ice water for a minute or two. Peel away the skins. Cut the tomatoes in quarters. Set aside.

Hard boil the eggs. Peel and halve. Set aside.

Wash the lettuce and dry the leaves, tearing the big ones in half.

Put some vinaigrette in a bowl. Add the salad leaves and lightly toss. Place the leaves in the bottom of a shallow serving dish. Toss the beans, then the potatoes, and lastly the tomatoes and onions together in the vinaigrette before placing each ingredient on top of the lettuce. Finally, arrange the remaining ingredients on the leaves: tuna, olives, artichokes, hard-boiled eggs, anchovies. Serve with crusty bread.

Chicken salad with arugula, oranges and almonds

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The chicken in this salad is deliciously crispy and caramelized because of the skin. We deboned chicken thighs prior to cooking, but kept the skin on. For some reason I cannot find thighs with skin but no bones - they seem to come either with or without both. If anyone knows where to get them deboned/skin on, please let me know! Until then I'll continue to do it this way - deboning's a bit of work, but well worth it for the flavour and crispiness.  

Chicken salad with arugula, oranges and almonds
Serves two
a couple of handfuls of arugula
one orange
a few artichokes from a jar
handful of almonds
two chicken thighs
dijon mustard
ponzu sauce (a Japanese citrus dressing)
olive oil
salt and pepper

Prepare the chicken by deboning the thighs, but leaving the skin on. Turn skin side up on the cutting board, and season the skin side with salt and pepper. Heat a frying pan on medium heat. Do not add oil because you will be frying the chicken in the fat from its own skin. When the pan is hot, add the chicken thighs skin side down. Let them cook about two-thirds of the way up, until they curl up and start to brown and crisp up. While they are cooking, season the other side of the thighs now facing up in the pan.

When the skin side is cooked, turn the thighs over and cook the other side for another five minutes or so. When cooked, remove from pan and place on a plate to rest. Slice each thigh into pieces that you put on top of the salad.  

Prepare the salad by washing and drying the arugula, peeling and slicing the orange, and halving the artichoke quarters. Roughly chop the almonds and lightly toast in a frying pan. Tip the almonds onto a cutting board to cool as soon as they have finished to prevent them from browning further in the pan. Put all of these ingredients in a big salad bowl.

 Prepare the dressing by mixing a little bit of Dijon mustard with a couple Tablespoons of ponzu sauce, and add olive oil to make into a dressing consistency. Pour over salad and toss. Top with chicken slices and serve.

A Roman feast

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My friends Peanut Butter and Jelly went to Rome for two weeks over Christmas. They had many delicious food adventures and came back with mouthwatering stories.

They kindly invited me for dinner on New Year's Eve and this is what they cooked for me, above. An insalata caprese to start, followed by spaghetti carbonara and tartuffo for dessert. The other two photos are from their trip to Rome and show the Septimus Arch forum and a never-ending row of scooters! (Crossing the street as a pedestrian in Rome is a leap of faith, they say, you just got to take a deep breath and go for it!)

PB and J have also generously offered to write a guest post on beFOODled about their adventures. Stay tuned because the next two posts on beFOODled will be all about their Roman holiday!

Read part one: General Roman food observations
Read part two: Roman restaurant reviews

Fondue dinner chez PB and J

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Peanut Butter and Jelly had us over for a delicious dinner the other night. They made a cheese fondue using one of PB's family heirlooms, an ancient fondue maker from Switzerland (below), bought in the 1970s. Isn't it stylish? Four decades later it still works a treat.

They also served a heavenly salad that looked as good as it tasted (above) and easy-peasy to make. It's a border of mandarin segments around a spring mix salad with irresistible roasted pecans and sugar snap peas, all sprinkled over with pomegranate seeds. PB and J served it in a rectangular plate that accentuated the lovely presentation. We ate it with a sweet vinaigrette and I loved it!


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Lunch with Barney

Lunch with Barney — meh, I don't care about quiche on Flickr by beFOODled.


Lunch with Barney — is he onto me? on Flickr by beFOODled.


Lunch with Barney — having a closer look on Flickr by beFOODled.


Lunch with Barney — up with the paw on Flickr by beFOODled.

Barney is my Mom's cat. He thinks he's human, likes human food, and sits at the table with the adults. Unlike adults, however, Barney has no table manners. The sequence above shows the events that usually unfold during a lunch with Barney. He pretends he's not interested in your food, then he looks at you, then he moves in a little closer, and then up with the paw! If you are not careful, that paw will try to grab your quiche and whatever else Barney fancies on your plate.

La Bouquinerie - saladerie et salon du thé en Provence

After our visit to the Nyons market, Susan treated all of the cooking students to lunch at La Bouquinerie, a wonderful second-hand bookstore and tea room that elevates the humble salad to a work of art :)


There are hot and cold salads inspired by various locales: the Provençale, the Asian with spring rolls, the cold Italian, the hot Italian that S and I ordered pictured above, and several other varieties. There's also a small dessert menu of interesting tarts, tortes and cakes baked in-house.

La Bouquinerie is in Le Poët-Laval, a very old and beautiful walled medieval village built during the 12th century. The tea room is actually located in a very steep, unevenly cobbled lane in the old castle in the centre of the village. Back in the day, the castle was also a refuge for crusaders on their way to the Holy Land. The monks offered shelter to the tired and treated the sick pilgrims passing through.

We ate inside, surrounded by old books on bookshelves built into the castle walls. However there's also a very romantic patio where you can sit and eat under a ceiling of grapes! It was raining when we were there, but I still got this wonderful shot of that patio and the view beyond it.

Chilled Shrimp, Cucumber and Noodle Salad

Japanese shrimp, cucumber and noodle salad, originally uploaded by beFOODled.

This noodle salad is another recipe from my favourite Japanese cookbook. I made it earlier this week for dinner. It's really light and refreshing, and the dressing tastes fantastic. If you keep a big bag of shrimp in the freezer and some classic Japanese pantry ingredients on hand (like those needed for this dressing), then you just have to remember to buy cucumbers and green onions to make this.

Chilled Prawn, Cucumber and Noodle Salad
serves two
recipe adapted from Jane Lawson's Yoshoku

12 cooked large shrimp, peeled
2 Lebanese (short) cucumbers
1 Tbsp dried wakame pieces (a kind of seaweed)
2 handfuls of somen noodles, each the diameter of a quarter
3 spring onions, thinly sliced on the diagonal
Japanese seven-spice mix (togarashi)

Dressing:
1/2 tsp dashi granules (a stock made from fish and seaweed)
1 Tbsp hot water
1/2 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup mirin
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
a dollop of a sesame-based dressing like Wafu (or sesame oil)
2 tsp grated ginger and its juice (optional)

Cut the shrimp in half lengthways and set aside in the fridge. Halve the cucumbers, scrape the seeds out with a spoon, and slice into thin half moons. Put in a colander in the sink and sprinkle over with salt. Let rest for 10 minutes, then rinse and squeeze out the water. Set aside in the fridge. Soak the wakame in a cup of water until they have expanded, about five minutes. Drain and chill.

Make the dressing by dissolving the dashi in the hot water in the bottom of a big mixing bowl. Add the rest of the liquids and stir to combine.

Cook the somen noodles by dropping them into a pot of boiling water for two minutes. Drain and cool the noodles in a colander under cold running tap water.

Mix all the ingredients together in the dressing and save some spring onion for garnish. Serve cold with a sprinkling of seven-spice mix.

Cucumber, Mango and Mint Salad

Mango, cucumber and mint salad, originally uploaded by beFOODled.

Cucumber, whole mint leaves and pieces of fresh mango. Just stack them like insalata caprese et voila, you have a refreshing five-ingredient salad for summer. No dressing required — just add a bit of olive oil on top because the fresh mint makes it wonderful. I mentioned this recipe during an earlier post about the Gastonati's Indian night after PB and Jelly brought it as a garnish for their quail masala. (Psst ... Jelly, if you are reading this, Happy Birthday!)

Orange and Arugula Salad

I have been following Jamie Oliver's advice on Salads 3.0, and I've ditched romaine for some more interesting greens. My favourite is this refreshing orange and baby arugula combination, another 5-ingredients-only recipe (not counting oil, salt and pepper, of course). You can also use any combination of spinach, Belgian endive and arugula, if you want. I used all three when I made this for our Easter dinner yesterday.

Orange and Arugula Salad
one large orange, sliced into rounds and each round quartered
a couple generous handfuls of arugula, spinach or endive
3 parts olive oil
1 part balsamic vinegar
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 Tbsp red pepper jelly
salt and pepper

Put the arugula into a big bowl. In a separate container, whisk the last five ingredients together to make the dressing. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss. Arrange the orange segments on top and serve immediately.

Secrets and Shortcuts: Salads 3.0

Iceberg lettuce? Romaine? Dullsville. Bags of designer lettuce? Expensive. Short-lived. I was watching Jamie at Home today, and he inspired me with some sage advice about salads.

Basically, save all those boring varieties for the rabbits, or skeet-shooting if you are Jamie Oliver, and get yourself five or six interesting salad greens, such as:

• endive
• arugula (rocket)
• watercress
• red-leaf lettuce
• green-leaf lettuce
• baby spinach
• radicchio (Italian chicory)

You can also use fresh herbs as salad leaves if you keep the leaves whole instead of chopping them. Some herbs that work well this way are:

• mint
• tarragon (goes well with arugula)
  
• basil
• parsley

When you get them home, wash them in the sink in cold water, and then spin dry in a salad spinner filled halfway each time. Tuck the leaves gently in a giant, tea-towel-lined tupperware container, and store them in the fridge where they'll last for about four days.

Stay tuned for some nice salad and dressing ideas using these ingredients, coming soon!

Insalata Caprese

Here's a simple, refreshing little appetizer that we made when AP, his mom from Cuba and EB came over for dinner a couple of weeks ago. I was first introduced to this little salad in the summer of 2005 when MV brought it for lunch at work one day. It's really easy to make and I think I will make it again for my birthday party this Friday.

Insalata Caprese

2 tomatoes, sliced
mozzarella or bocconchini cheese ball, sliced
basil leaves
salt to season
your best extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)

Create little stacks of tomato, cheese and basil leaves on a nice cutting board. Drizzle with EVOO and sprinkle with salt.

Thai Night with the BeFOODies

Last Monday, we hosted the second monthly meeting of the Church of Gastronology. All beFOODies were in attendance. The collage above shows all the food that we cooked and ate. I had been looking forward to this all weekend! PB and J brought over a delicious sesame salad, chicken satays and peanut sauce, and two large Nalgenes full of Thai tea, which was a perfect foil to all the super-hot curries we consumed. It's made with black tea and spices, chilled and then served topped up with lots of condensed milk. Squeaky and Calimocho brought over a wonderful shrimp curry, mango and chicken curry, and Singha (Thai beer). S and served a hot and sour shrimp soup and a cucumber and peanut salad. Here are the recipes for those last two dishes.

Tom Yam Kung (hot and sour shrimp soup)
adapted from The Essential Wok Cookbook

1 kg shrimp, frozen, peeled, with tails
oil
Over 2 litres of water
2 Tbsp tom yam paste
1 stem lemon grass, white part only, sectioned into three pieces and bruised
4 kaffir lime leaves
1 long red chili, halved along the long side and deseeded
100 ml fish sauce
100 ml lime juice
2 tsp sugar
2 spring onions, sliced on the diagonal
fresh coriander leaves to garnish

Thaw the shrimp in a colander under running water. Take off the tails and reserve. Put thawed shrimp in the fridge.
Heat oil in the bottom of a stock pot and fry the shrimp tails on medium heat for about 5 minutes. They will turn orange. Add the tom yum paste and 1/4 cup of water. Fry for a bit, and then add the 2.2 litres of water. Bring to a boil and reduce heat. Simmer for 20 minutes. Strain the broth into a bowl and throw away the solids. Return broth to the stock pot.
Add the lemon grass, lime leaves and chili halves and simmer for about 5 minutes. Stir in the fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, spring onion and shrimp. Cook until the shrimp are pink (just a few minutes). Take out the red chili, lime leaves and lemon grass segments. Serve immediately.


Cucumber Salad with Peanuts and Chili
adapted from The Essential Asian Cookbook

4 Lebanese cucumbers
2 Tbsp white vinegar
2 tsp sugar
2 Tbsp chili sauce
1/2 red onion, chopped
1/2 fresh coriander leaves
1 cup unsalted roasted peanuts, chopped
2 Tbsp crisp fried garlic*
1/2 tsp chopped red chili
1 Tbsp fish sauce

Peel the cucumbers and slice in half lengthways. Scoop out seeds with a teaspoon and slice the halves.
Add the sugar to the vinegar and stir until dissolved. In a large bowl, toss the cucumber, chili sauce, onion, and vinegar mixture. Marinate for 45 minutes.
Just before serving add the peanuts, crisp fried garlic, chili and fish sauce. Toss the salad and serve garnished with coriander.

*To make the crisp fried garlic, slice whole garlic cloves very thinly. Spread out to dry on a piece of paper towel for about an hour. Heat oil in a pan and deep-fry the garlic until it just turns light brown and is crisp. Drain on paper towels and sprinkle with salt before you use them.