Salads
Being such a Fat Bastard I tend to make a lot of salads during those periods when I'm trying to lose weight. So I tend to make a lot of salads!
And I tend to go to a lot of trouble to make them tasty.
Pity that mostly involves cheese.
Just a good salad
Broccoli salad
salad raw veg
Ingredients
Broccoli florets
Grated carrot
Sliced red pepper
Thinly sliced red onion
Thinly sliced red chilli
Quartered black olives
Quartered small tart plums
Capers
Grated Parmesan or mature cheddar if you're vegetarian!
Lettuce leaves e.g. Red Gem
Dressing
Olive oil
Lemon Juice
Crushed garlic
Sherry vinegar
Salt and freshly ground mixed peppercorns
Method
Mix the salad vegetables. Mix the dressing. Line serving bowls with the lettuce, fill with the salad, grate over the cheese, drizzle over the dressing.


Invented for Rachel's Mum's Birthday bash out at Crieff Hydro - it seemed to go down well, even amongst avowed pizza eaters.
Orange salad
salad meat
Ingredients
Oranges (blood oranges if possible)
Ruby Grapefruit (optional)
Bitter salad leaves (Watercress/Rocket/Endive/Chicory etc)
Chives (or red onion)
Oily black olives.
- use the dry-cured salted type - they actually have some flavour
Parmesan shavings.
Haggis (optional)
(Sliced fennel might work too)
Dressing
Olive oil
Generous dash of Balsamic
Salt & pepper to taste
Method
Peel the orange and grapefruit (if you fancy it) with a knife, slicing away any white pith,
then cut into segments with a sharp knife (don't just separate the segments).
Slice the olives into thin segments, chop the chives or slice the red onion, mix with the orange.
Shave the Parmesan.
To serve, dress the leaves, scatter onto the serving plates, pile on the orange mix and top with the cheese shavings.

For that special Burn's Supper Starter you might mash a beaten egg into some haggis innards and fry small balls of the mixture to scatter over the orange mixture! The flavours work quite well.


Fennel & Pomegranate Salad
salad raw veg
Fennel & Pomegranate Salad
Ingredients
1 fennel bulb
1 small pack quartered radishes
2 segmented oranges
1 pomegranate
2 mixed chillies
½ cucumber
1 pack beansprouts
1 pack mozzarella
Dressing
Dill
Orange juice
Sherry vinegar
Olive oil
Yoghurt
Salt
Method
Thinly slice the fennel bulb and cucumber, quarter the radishes, segment the orange (slice off the top and bottom, peel with a knife then slice down both sides of each segment's faces) scoop out the pomegranate seeds, slice the chilli and mozzarella.
Mix

Finely chop the dill and add to or process with the orange juice and vinegar. Whisk in the oil. Add yoghurt and season. Serve with the salad.

It's quite refreshing, but a bit bland. The dressing is slightly bitter-edged (though the yoghurt helps with this). I wonder if a blue-cheese dressing might work better?

Blue Cheese Salad
salad raw veg
Ingredients
Cherry tomatoes, quartered
Red onion, sliced
Plums, segmented
Sweetcorn, kernels separated
Little gems broken
basil leaves
St Agur, crumbled

Dressing 1 orange, juiced
1 lime, juiced
Same quantity olive oil
dash sherry vinegar
2 garlic cloves, pressed
Seasoning
Method
Quarter the tomatoes, slice the onions, slice the sweetcorn kernels off the hard core.
Mix the salad and smaller little gem leaves, dress, place on the larger little gem leaves, sprinkle with crumbled St Agur.
Serve.
Goes nicely with a blue cheese dressing. Duh!
Blue Cheese Dressing Salad
salad raw veg
Ingredients
Carrots, grated
Radish, segmented
Green pepper, sliced
Chilli, sliced
Green olives, sliced if you fancy
Spring onions, sliced
Cauliflower, segmented
Sweetcorn, kernels separated
Lemon peel, thinly sliced or pared
Blue Cheese Dressing
Method
Mix it up.
Dress
Serve.

A Nice Greek Salad
salad veg
Ingredients
8oz Feta cheese, ¾" dice
1lb Small tomatoes, quartered
½ Cucumber, sliced very thickly and quartered as the tomatoes
½ Red Onion, halved and sliced
½ Green pepper, quartered and sliced
12 dry-cured black olives, halved
Tblsp Capers (optional)
2 Boiled eggs, quartered (optional)
couple red chillies, shredded (optional)
Basil leaves

Dressing
Lemon juice (or lime)
Sherry vinegar
Olive oil
Prepare the salad except cheese and eggs ingredients in a bowl, season, shake up ¼ lemon juice, ¼ sherry vinegar and ½ olive oil to an emulsion, then stir into the salad.
Gently mix in the feta. Top with the eggs.

Since the feta tends to crumble apart and smear the whole salad with white flecks it;s a good idea to add the cheese at the end.
A good handful of basil leaves is a nice addition.
Nice served on the torn leaves of a round (Butterhead) lettuce, and with crusty white bread.
It's also pretty good topped off with a smoked trout, especially grilled.
You could do worse than dressing your salad using olive oil mixed with coriander chutney that you accidentally made with parsley instead. Weird, but good. If definitively un-authentic!

Courgette And Tomato Salad
salad raw veg
Ingredients
1 large courgette. Chopped.
1 bunch spring onions. Sliced diagonally.
dozen cherry tomatoes. Quartered and sliced in 3.
coriander leaves
basil leaves
pea shoots
strong cheddar cheese. Grated.

Dressing
olive oil
orange juice
garlic, pressed
dash of balsamic vinegar
mustard
seasoning
Chop and combine the vegetables.
Add some torn herb leaves. Basil or coriander work well.

Shake the dressing ingredients together.
You can use lemon or lime juice instead of the orange.
I used smooth mustard, but you could use wholegrain.
Season well.

Place a handful of pea shoots, or other crunchy salad leaves into a bowl, top with the vegetables, dress, and grate over the cheese.

A nice easy salad.
The dressing is particularly tasty.
You could add cucumber or plums chopped as the tomatoes also.

Avocado And Tomato Salad
salad raw veg
Ingredients
2 avocados, not too squishy, chunked
1 red onion, sliced
dozen cherry tomatoes, quartered
dozen dry-cured black olives, stoned, halved
torn herbs, basil works (optional)
1 orange, segmented (optional)
St Agur, crumbled
juice of 1 lime
olive oil
watercress
Chop and mix the vegetables and herbs with the lime juice and a drizzle of olive oil.
you need to do this to stop the avocado turning brown.
You can add a segmented orange too if you like. Use a knife to peel and segment it.

Serve topped with crumbled blue cheese on a bed of watercress.

Avocado and Pomegranate Salad
salad raw veg
Ingredients
1 firm avocado, cut into chunks
seeds of ¼ pomegranate
1 courgette, quartered lengthways and sliced
handful cashew nuts, lightly crushed
½ red onion, halved again, thinly sliced
1 red pepper, quartered lengthwise, thinly sliced
handful of parsley leaves
chilli, sliced (optional)
mature cheddar, grated

Dressing
juice of 1 lemon
4 garlic cloves, pressed
2 teaspoons tahini
3 Tablespoons soy sauce
½ cup olive oil
salt & pepper

Method
Mix up your herbs, fruit and vegetables.
What is an avocado though? Is it a vegetable? Is it a fruit? Or is it just a bloody big berry?
Put the lemon juice, garlic and tahini in a jar and shake it up pretty thoroughly. Add generous soy sauce then roughly double the volume with olive oil to thicken the dressing nicely, and shake again.

Dress the salad and serve with a grating of cheese.
In the course of making up this salad (mostly from the leftovers of a green cabbage salad), I discovered a lovely 18-month matured "Farmhouse" vintage Somerset Cheddar at Asda (unusual since most of their cheese tastes like styrofoam) which they claim to be a Gold Winner at the 2009 Nantwich International Cheese Show.

Although they can be a bit challenging to munch on I'm getting quite in to using pomegranate to liven up some of these salads. Those seeds do seem to stick around in your teeth for several hours after though.

As found several places on the Interwebs
Winter Salad
salad raw veg
Winter Salad
Ingredients
1 head romaine lettuce, torn into bite-size pieces
4 ounces shredded Swiss cheese
1 cup cashews
¼ cup dried cranberries
1 apple - peeled, cored and diced
1 pear - peeled, cored and sliced

Dressing
½ cup white sugar
½ cup lemon juice
2 teaspoons diced onion
1 teaspoon Dijon-style prepared mustard
½ teaspoon salt
2/3 cup olive oil
1 Tablespoon poppy seeds

Method
In a blender or food processor, combine sugar, lemon juice, onion, mustard, and salt. Process until well blended.
With machine still running, add oil in a slow, steady stream until mixture is thick and smooth.
Add poppy seeds, and process just a few seconds more to mix.

In a large serving bowl, toss together the romaine lettuce, shredded Swiss cheese, cashews, dried cranberries, apple, and pear.
Pour dressing over salad just before serving, and toss to coat.

A pretty-looking salad for the time of year. Something the Snow Queen might eat. Tasty too.
The dressing is a little coarse, but has potential I think - be cautious adding the sugar, salt and mustard - taste first then adjust as necessary. I think I'd try honey or a brown sugar in there, and perhaps a nice nut oil.
You might also adjust the amounts of cranberries and cashews until the balance looks about right.

Green Cabbage Salad
salad raw veg
Green Cabbage Salad
Ingredients
½ green cabbage, thinly sliced I used Savoy
1 carrot, grated
1 courgette, quartered lengthwise and chopped
handful green olives, roughly sliced or chopped
couple teaspoons capers, whole
1 red onion, thinly sliced
1 red pepper, thinly sliced
seeds of ½ pomegranate
Stilton cheese, crumbled

Dressing
handful parsley
juice 2 limes
2-3 teaspoons capers
4 garlic cloves, crushed
cup olive oil
2 teaspoons wholegrain mustard optional
salt & pepper

Method
Slice the vegetables and pickles and mix them up (the cabbage doesn't have to be desperately thin), pop the seeds out of the pomegranate half using your fingers to crack open the fruit flesh.
Obviously there's room for improvisation in the choice of vegetables, some reasonably firm fruit might work, as well as celery or nuts.

Make up the dressing by blending the herbs, capers, garlic and the lime juice, season and drizzle in the olive oil whilst blending until the mixture thickens.

Serve the salad with the dressing and a sprinkling of crumbled Stilton.

The pomegranate seeds are a bit crunchy, and you could leave them out, though they're a nice dash of colour, and sweet counterpoint in the flavours. Some other crunchy ingredients (like celery?) might work well to make them a bit less obvious.

The dressing is very tart, but I liked it. You might use some lemon or orange juice instead.

Red Cabbage Salad
salad raw veg
Ingredients
½ red cabbage, thinly sliced
2 carrots, grated
1 red onion, thinly sliced
1 green pepper, sliced
head broccoli or cauliflower, broken into florets and divided if necessary
3 chillies, sliced
pine nuts (optional)
apples, sliced (optional)
firm plums (optional)
crispy fried bacon bits (optional)
mature cheddar cheese, grated
couple handfuls dry-cured black olives, halved

Dressing
juice 2 oranges or lemons
4 garlic cloves, pressed
tahini (optional)
Greek yoghurt (optional)
hot sauce (optional)
soy sauce (optional)
cup olive oil
salt & pepper

Method
Slice the vegetables and olives and mix them up. Again, improvise with the vegetables, you could add different nuts too if you'd like. I often add sliced apple or tart plums, and I've also chopped in dried fruit like prunes or apricots and crisp bacon lardons.

Make up the dressing by shaking the fruit juice with the garlic and the yoghurt, tahini and sauces if you're using them. Add the olive oil and season.

Serve the salad with the dressing and a generous grating of cheese.


Georgina approved,
but sadly not Sophie sanctioned,
who has now taken against sweetcorn
due to a rather uncomfortable lavatorial experience.
Georgina's Salad
salad raw veg
Ingredients
½ head broccoli, broken into florets
handful mange tout, cut at an angle into bite-sized pieces
1 mango, cut into bite-sized pieces
handful mint leaves, shredded
1 sweetcorn, kernels sliced off
½ red onion, finely chopped
1 carrot cut into very thin juliennes
a dozen cherry tomatoes, quartered
butter lettuce

Dressing
juice of an orange
3 cloves garlic, pressed
drizzle of balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons wholegrain mustard
olive oil
salt & pepper

Method
Chop the vegetables. Chop them quite small if you want Georgina to eat them, especially the raw broccolli of which she is moderately suspicious. Though she does like the mango.
Slice off the sweetcorn kernels by running a knife down its length.
I thought it was nice to have slightly crunchy pieces of carrot, rather than grated, but you if you are in a hurry...

Mix the herbs, fruit and vegetables together.

Shake the dressing ingredients together in a jar, adding about an equal or double volume of olive oil until it emulsifies nicely.

Dress the salad and serve on torn lettuce leaves with homemade chicken nuggets if you want to earn Georgina's undying devotion.

Sweetcorn and Mango Salad
salad raw veg
Ingredients
1 ear sweetcorn, kernels separated
1 mango, diagonally diced
1 head broccoli, florets separated
1 red onion
1 carrot, grated
2 red peppers, diced
200g Emmenthaler, diced
bunch mange tout, diagonally sliced
bunch coriander, shredded

Dressing
juice of 1 lemon
similar quantity olive oil
2 tsps honey
1 tsp paprika
½ tsp salt
dash Japanese rice mirin
1 cup yoghurt

Method
Slice down the corn kernel to separate the kernels.
Cut all the fruit, vegetables and cheese into a similar sized dice (about 1cm - maybe less for the cheese).
Try and make the pieces interestingly rhomboid.
Yet another variation on the theme of Wander through the supermarket picking out what catches your eye and make a salad out of it.

The dressing is a bit different, and rather nice - sweet but with a kick to it.

Mixed Vegetable Salad With Blue Cheese Dressing
salad raw veg
Mixed Vegetable and Blue Cheese Dressing Salad
Ingredients
1 ear sweetcorn, kernels sliced off
2 small courgettes, quartered and sliced
1 head broccoli, florets separated
6 asparagus spears, sliced diagonally into pieces
1 red pepper, halved then quartered and sliced
1 orange pepper, halved then quartered and sliced
2 red chillies, quartered and sliced
1 red onion, halved then quartered then sliced
½ lb fresh peas, podded
4 tomatoes, halved then quartered and sliced
Butter (round) lettuce, torn into pieces

Dressing
juice of 3 lemons
double this quantity of olive oil
2-3 heaping teaspoons tahini
handful dill, stalks removed, chopped or try other herbs - tarragon works nicely
6 cloves garlic, crushed
salt and red peppercorns
¼lb Bleu d'Auvergne, crumbled into ½" pieces

Method
Slice down the corn kernel to separate the kernels.
Cut all the vegetables into thin slices and mix together.
Tear the lettuce leaves
Shake the dressing ingredients together, then crumble (or chop) in the cheese and mix.

Lay a bed of torn lettuce, pile on the vegetables, pour over the cheese and dressing.
Serve.

If you want to keep your salad for a while (I make a load and keep it for days), don't mix in the tomatoes yet.
You can tear up the lettuce and chop the tomatoes to add when you are ready to serve.
Nice salad, good dressing. Would probably work with other herbs.

Nice 'n' Easy Work Salad with Blue Cheese Dressing
salad veg
Quite a quick'n'tasty salad to make for lunch at work. If you have a greengrocer handy.

Serves 1

Ingredients
½ little gem lettuce, torn
some rocket or watercress or other interesting leaves
4 spring onions, sliced
1 ripe avocado, cubed
1 cooked beetroot, cubed
4 tomatoes (optional), diced
4 slices sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, shredded

Dressing
chunk gorgonzola (or other soft blue cheese)
2-3 tablespoons mayonnaise
drizzle of the sun-dried tomato oil

Method
Slice the spring onions diagonally and mix up with the salad leaves.
Halve the avocado, cut the flesh into ½" strips lengthways then crossways in the shell and scoop out into the salad.
Slice the beetroot into disks then across both ways into ½" cubes. Add to the salad.
Cut the tomatoes into ½" dice. Add.
Slice the sun-dried tomatoes pieces into thin shreds. Add.
Mash the gorgonzola with a couple of tablespoons of mayonnaise (since you are at work you are allowed to use shop-bought mayonnaise), and a drizzle of the oil from the sun-dried tomato jar. Dollop over the salad.
Eat at your desk whilst trying to conceal the onscreen porn.
It's a quick-and-dirty salad, but it's still pretty tasty.

Another Quick Work Salad with Smoked Mackerel
salad fish
The nice fishmonger near my work hot-smoke their own Mackerel on the premises in various flavours, and they make a tasty salad for lunch

Serves 1

Ingredients
1 hot-smoked mackerel fillet, sliced or diced
2 smallish cooked beetroots, chopped
spring onions, sliced or red onion if you have the facilities for slicing it
gherkin, chopped
leafy salad, preferably something with rocket

Dressing
2-3 tablespoons creme fraiche
juice of ½ lemon

Method
Mix the vegetables, dress with the moistened creme fraiche and decorate with the mackerel.
Yum - lunch!
Healthy too. Probably.

Melon and Beetroot Salad
salad veg
Melon and Beetroot Salad
serves 4

Ingredients

Method
Cook the beetroots thoroughly in their skins, then peel them (or buy some ready-cooked if you're standards have been hopelessly corrupted by too much Cooking For Philistines), and chop into ½" chunks. Set these aside in a separate bowl.
Cut the block of feta into ½" chunks and put in another bowl.
Keeping the feta and beetroot separate prevents them from prematurely colouring the rest of the ingredients.
Rinse and chop the parsley and gently mix into the feta with a little tangerine or lemon juice to coat.
Wash and mix the salad leaves and set to drain.
Into a new large bowl:
  • Cut ½" slices off the melon, deseed, slice away the skin and cut into ½" triangles.
  • Pod the peas
  • Halve the red onion, quarter the halves and slice.
  • Diagonally slice the spring onions about ¼"
  • Halve or quarter the courgette lengthways if it's very thick and slice into ½" chunks.
Shake up the dressing ingredients in a jam jar and dress the salad leaves.

Line a plate or bowl with the leaves, pile on the mixed vegetables, scatter the beetroot and feta pieces around and artistically drizzle some of the salad dressing around the edges.
Serve
A fresh but substantial salad, the salty tang of the feta nicely offsets the sweetness of the melon and beetroot.
I don't think raw beetroot would be anywhere near as nice, but you could go ahead and try that if you like.
If anything the salad suffered from perhaps being a little too sweet, and you could add some lemon juice in there - either mixing with the feta and parsley instead of the orange juice, or adding to the dressing. Some crushed garlic in the dressing might counter some of its cloying sweetness also.

By the way - if you're thinking that a few capers might be a nice addition to this salad, you'd be wrong!

Some potentially interesting Honey/Mustard dressing variants:
  • ⅓ cup honey
  • ⅓ cup mustard
  • ⅓ cup mayonnaise
  • ⅓ cup sour cream
  • 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
and:
  • 5 Tablespoons honey
  • 2 Tablespoons cider or rice vinegar
  • - Heat these up together until the honey melts. Possibly with some minced onion.
  • 3 Tablespoons smooth Dijon mustard

Pasta Salad
salad veg pasta
Ingredients
½lb pasta (shells)
2 tomatoes, sliced
2 nectarines, sliced
6 green olives, sliced
chopped parsley
grated parmesan though obviously not Parmesan if you're vegetarian!

Dressing:
lime juice
olive oil (2:1 with the lime juice)
crushed garlic

Method
Mix 'em up.
Eat.

Melon and Ham Salad
salad meat
Serves 4

Ingredients
Method
Cut up all your fruit, vegetables ham and cheese and mix them together.
I would have liked to find a really delicious Jamón ibérico (pata negra) ham, but I was in Safeways, so had to make do with something that looked like it had been vacuum packed after the cat had finished chewing it.
You could use Parma ham though - adjust the cut you use to suit the ham - I had fat matchstics of my cat-bothered ham, but you'd probably want micro-slices of Parma.
The cheese you use would be up to you - I had Old Amsterdam mature Gouda, but I think more-or-less anything would work fine, from blue cheeses through Gruyère to Mozzarella balls or even Feta.
You'll need some peppery salad leaves to go with - I used a mixture of watercress and rocket, which worked OK. I thought chicory might be good, but I couldn't find any.
Serve drizzled with your dressing of choice.
I tried out a mango dressing (above), but wasn't entirely happy with it. I based it on the notion of a honey-mustard dressing which I thought ought to work.
I did have a dressing left over from another salad, which bizarrely worked quite well:

  • Alternative Dressing:
  • juice 2 limes
  • 2-3 teaspoons capers
  • 4 garlic cloves, crushed
  • cup olive oil
  • 2 teaspoons wholegrain mustard optional
  • salt & pepper

Roast Pepper and Mango Salad
salad veg
Serves 2

Ingredients
Method
Grill the red pepper evenly until the skin chars, then wrap it in a plastic bag to cool. After which you can fairly easily peel off the skin and remove the core and seeds.
Now slice the pepper, the onion, chop the mango, mince the chilli, cube your cheese and mix together with a drizzle of lemon juice to stop the mango turning brown (unless you're eating it immediately).
Make up the dressing and serve on a bed of lettuce.
Looks pretty!

Fennel and Apple Salad
salad raw
A fresh, light salad.

Serves 6

Ingredients
Method
Finely slice the fennel (probably a bit finer than your mandoline would do), quarter the apples, trim away the core and slice them finely, mix them both in a bowl with enough lemon juice to coat them, and stop them discolouring. Peel the cucumber if you're fussy and slice that in too, slice up the spring onions at an angle, finely chop a generous handful of tarragon leaves and mix everything together. Mix up the dressing, season, and dress bowls of the salad. Finely slice the hazelnuts or use the other nuts and scatter on top.
Serve.
Very good.
You can add a grated carrot to bulk it out too if you like, but it doesn't quite work with the other, fresh, crisp, flavours.

Simple Un-Caesar Salad
Salad. A bit like a Caesar. But mostly not.
salad
Salad. A bit like a Caesar. But mostly not.
It is the work of only moments to make though.

Serves 2

Ingredients
Method
Shred the lettuce, slice the onion and the olives, chop the tomatoes, mince the anchovies, cut up the parsley, mix together with juice from a squeezed half lemon and a grind of black pepper.
Grate cheese on top.
Job done.
I'm sure you could throw in a boiled (or coddled) egg, some croutons, Worcestershire sauce and a garlicky vinaigrette.
But then you'd have a proper Caesar salad. And who has the time?

Mango and Ham Salad
A mango and ham salad now with added beetroot.
salad meat
This definitely works best using one of those Pakistani honey mangoes when they come into season at the beginning of summer.
Yumsk!

Ingredients
Method
Chop the salad ingredients into a large bowl.
Whizz up the dressing.
Dress the salad leaves in another bowl, and make individual servings of the salad on the leaves. Serve with remaining dressing on the side.
The mango and coriander is a nice combination.
I accidentally tried it with melon instead, which wasn't bad but I think the mango would probably have been better - also don't mix the salad leaves into the salad, they go all sad.
I thought avocado would probably also work, perhaps some cheese, perhaps olives.
Good as it was though.

Tortilla Fattoush
Middle Eastern salad
salad veg vegan
Quite a while ago now my work colleague Siobhain was kind enough to bring me some genuine sumac from her trip to Egypt so when I got sick of using a bumper pack of leftover tortilla wraps to make really dry sandwiches, I decided to adapt this handy recipe to make up a fattoush-like salad.
Have you noticed how much of my cooking involves leftovers?

Apart from the pitta bread, and some radishes that I skipped, this version of the Middle Eastern salad also calls for 4 tablespoons of sumac powder. I think that might be some kind of Middle Eastern joke - I went with 4 teaspoons. It worked for me!

Serves 4

Ingredients
Method
For the dressing, place the olive oil, lemon juice and zest, crushed garlic and sumac into a bowl and whisk together to combine. Season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground black pepper. (You will not need all the dressing for this recipe, so set the remainder aside in the fridge for up to a week.)

For the salad, place the torn tortilla or pitta, tomatoes, cucumber, pepper, radishes, shallot, rocket leaves, Little Gem lettuce leaves and mint leaves into a large bowl and season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

To serve, pour the dressing, to taste, over the salad and gently mix together to coat the salad evenly.
A refreshingly sour and spicy salad. Many versions toast or fry the pitta before breaking it up and Yotam Ottolenghi offers a version adding buttermilk to the dressing. So your mileage may vary.

Celery Tuna and White Beans Salad
fish salad
I happened to have a lot of celery to use up, a fruit bowl full of rapidly wrinkling lemons, a bag of radishes and a tin of tuna in the pantry. Well, I say pantry - it's just the cupboard where we keep the fridge, but other cookery writers have pantries, so I don't see why I can't. I didn't have any cucumber though, and this salad doesn't really use up much celery, but it was very tasty all the same.

A nice minty yoghurt dressing goes very well with it - though it's pretty well dressed as it is.

Serves 4

Ingredients
Method
In a large bowl, combine beans, sliced celery and onion. Squeeze the juice of 1 lemon into bowl; add oil and toss to combine. Season to taste with salt and pepper, adding more lemon juice to taste, if desired. Add radishes and cucumber and the flaked tuna; toss to combine. Divide salad onto plates and garnish with celery and parsley leaves.
Really not a bad use for celery. It can be soo hard to use up celery!

Grape, Tomato and Cucumber Salad
salad veg vegan
Grapes make a nice salad ingredient - I should probably use them more often. They do have a light, delicate flavour though so you need to avoid adding anything too strong, but the peppery rocket offers a pleasant contrast.
I think you could probably add orange segments too.

Makes enough for 2

Ingredients
Method
Into your salad bowl quarter the tomatoes, halve the grapes, thinly slice the garlic, thinly slice the onion. Cut the cucumber in half lengthways, then cut each half lengthways again into thirds or quarters, then cut the sticks into chunks. Mix into the rest of the salad along with the rocket and watercress I used rocket.
Dress and serve.
A nice light summery salad. It actually goes surprisingly well with a thick piece of white toast, rubbed with a garlic clove and drizzled with the dressing.

Thai Pomelo Salad
salad thai
The original recipe from Saveur suggested ¼ cup of fish sauce which seemed somewhat excessive. I guess those Thais really love their fish sauce!

Also I used only 1 pomelo, which seemed quite enough - mind you it was as large as a football. There was also a lot of pith and membrane, and the fruit was quite firm, verging on tough. I don't know how typical that is - this was my first pomelo :)

Serves 4

Ingredients
Method
Whisk fish sauce, sugar, juices, chiles, and garlic, then loosen with a tablespoon or two of water. Peel the pomelo and cut into segments removing and discarding the intervening membranes (supremed). Mix the pomelo, watercress, peanuts and mint in a large bowl and pour over the dressing.
Excellent salad. Terrific flavours.
I think grapefruit would make a good substitute for the pomelo too.

Fried (Old) Chicken Salad
salad fowl
I had some old, and slightly whiffy, chicken to eat. Or throw away.
I ate it.

Ingredients
Method
Marinate the chicken strips in yoghurt for a day.
I was thinking the yoghurt's acidity would kill any harmful bacteria in the whiffy chicken. Well, I didn't die. So maybe it did?
Roll the strips in baked breadcrumbs, sesame seeds, then flour seasoned with salt, pepper, cumin and paprika.
Deep-fry until golden.

Shake up the dressing ingredients in a jar.

Make a salad with the quartered baby corn, sliced red and green peppers, sliced red onion, mango pieces, lettuce and coriander leaves.
Dress, and add grated cheddar or crumbled blue cheese.

Top with the fried chicken and serve.
Good.
I couldn't tell the chicken was off.
Just like Kentucky ;)

Beetroot and Blue Cheese Salad
salad veg
A simple salad I made to use up some special-offer cooked beetroot from Scotmid, and reduced-price Blue Stilton from Tesco.

Ingredients
Method
Chop the tomatoes and salt generously. Add the chopped beetroot, sliced red onion, and mint. Dress and stir together. Scatter with the crumbled blue cheese.
Goes really well with some bread to soak up the luscious juices.