Recipes for everyday cooking are supposed to fulfil so many requirements, the mind boggles. They need to be easy. Healthy and nutritious. Conducive to weight watching. On the other hand, they better be tasty, child-friendly and doable in about 20 minutes. Not too many ingredients, and preferably nothing fancy that can’t be found in an average fridge, store cupboard and supermarket shelf.
Add to that my personal principles, using seasonal and local produce, and you’re left with chicken Caesar salad made with a free range local supermarket rotisserie bird. Well – we could do worse than that.
Spring is an easy season to produce perfect weeknight dinners, satisfying most if not all of the above demands. And spring salads are up there, in the lead of the parade.
And before anyone grumbles that greenery is not exactly a universally acknowledged kids’ favourite, let me remind you that ‘salad’ in the contemporary sense doesn’t have to be a mix of leaves or raw veg.
I entirely agree with Yotam Ottolenghi that what we can refer to as ‘salads’ will be concoctions of well-matched textures and flavours, layered with dressings, sauces or condiments. The temperature is not relevant either – there are plenty warm salads.
It is not at all unorthodox, actually: the word ‘salad’ originates from Old French ‘salade’ (14c.) and Latin ‘salata’, meaning ‘salted’. Thus, it clearly transpires that the only unorthodox salad is a fruit salad served for dessert!
But this week it’s salads as main course propositions. First off, the ones using new season delicacies. Spicy bacon, new potatoes and cucumber make a great combination; or a slight variation, less spicy potatoes, asparagus and pancetta.
Smoked fish makes good salads too: smoked fish and rice Asian salad bowl or smoked mackerel in a combo with avocado, cucumber and celeriac.
You can swap parsnips for boiled new potatoes in the pear, pumpkin and halloumi salad, and you can add shredded chicken to the giant couscous one. In any of the above you can also bulk the recipe out by adding cooked pasta, if your household contains any permanently ravenous teenagers. And then make pasta fritta with leftover penne, orzo or fusilli.
Noodles are another option: here’s five spice shrimp crispy noodle salad. And a deliciously different take on a meaty salad: crispy pork mince with beans.
More ideas in the salad pages. Happy, healthy cooking!