Ideas or books on salads

I love salad but I'm not very inventive when it comes to thinking up new salad combinations. I'm not into bitter salad leaves but I can cope with them in small amounts of mixed together with other greens. Can any of you share any salad recipes or suggest any good books?

I include cooked and cold veg in salads as well as uncooked vegetables. I like to include nuts and sometimes fruit, but in small quantities. I sometimes have dressings on salads but usually prefer to add dressings as I'm about to eat the salad.

I'm not a great fan of hard, bitter leaves either, although I do like peppery, pungent leaves like wild rocket & watercress.

My favourite salad by far is Caesar salad - which is just basically a chopped or torn up iceberg lettuce and 3 or 4 roughly chopped anchovy fillets, tossed in Caesar dressing and topped with lots of parmesan shavings....and maybe a few crispy croutons. If you don't like anchovies, a rasher or 2 of crumbled crispy bacon works just as well for that salty/savoury kick. Home-made Caesar dressing is the nicest, but it's a bit of a faff. Plenty of the supermarket Caesar dressings do the trick nicely.

I like my version of Waldorf Salad - chopped celery, chopped green apple (like Granny Smiths),a handful of toasted walnut pieces and a handful of juicy raisins or sultanas, tossed with a squeeze of lemon juice and a couple of dessert spoonsful of mayonnaise.

Another favourite is baby spinach leaves (or rocket, or watercress), halved cherry tomatos, crumbled feta cheese and a handful of toasted pinenuts, with a dressing of made of extra-virgin olive oil, minced garlic, and lemon-juice.

Hope this gives you some ideas Chez2!

I've tried the first two, thanks. I've had the third salad but not dressed the way you describe. My mouth is watering just reading it. I will try the third salad dressed that way. Thanks.

Try https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/River-Cottage-Veg-Every-Day/1408812126 for recipes and ideas.

My current fave is ribbons of raw courgettes (just use a peeler) with raw peas (nice, young, Yorkshire peas), chopped raw asparagus and a dressing of lemon juice and rapeseed oil whisked together with a little salt and pepper. Add gratings of a hard ewe's cheese or chunks of feta if you fancy. You could also serve with cold pasta, or maybe salad potatoes, to make a light meal of it.

Try https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/River-Cottage-Veg-Every-Day/1408812126 for recipes and ideas.

 

My current fave is ribbons of raw courgettes (just use a peeler) with raw peas (nice, young, Yorkshire peas), chopped raw asparagus and a dressing of lemon juice and rapeseed oil whisked together with a little salt and pepper. Add gratings of a hard ewe's cheese or chunks of feta if you fancy. You could also serve with cold pasta, or maybe salad potatoes, to make a light meal of it.

That's sounds delicious, I'm salivating just reading it! We eat a lot of courgettes but I've never though to eat them raw. Mum used to buy a bag of peas each for me and my brother as kids. We used to sit and eat them raw straight out of the pods.

We have a few River Cottage books but not that one, thanks.

Try https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/River-Cottage-Veg-Every-Day/1408812126 for recipes and ideas.

 

My current fave is ribbons of raw courgettes (just use a peeler) with raw peas (nice, young, Yorkshire peas), chopped raw asparagus and a dressing of lemon juice and rapeseed oil whisked together with a little salt and pepper. Add gratings of a hard ewe's cheese or chunks of feta if you fancy. You could also serve with cold pasta, or maybe salad potatoes, to make a light meal of it.

Corr, that sounds lovely.

My favourite at the moment is smoked mackerel, broken into pieces and served with:

- mixed leaves

- little cubes of cooked beetroot

- cucumber

- boiled egg halves

- a dressing of Greek yogurt, horseradish and lemon juice

with some good bread (rye is nice with this).

Sounds divine but hubby won't eat Mackerel. Hubby is into making sourdough bread at the moment. We find rye bread too heavy, unless he's making it wrong. He is currently making bread with a small amount of rye in it. He made two loaves on Sunday but as its best eaten fresh we have frozen one. We have never frozen home made bread before so will be interesting to see how it is when it defrosts.

On Sunday we had fresh baked sourdough bread with a mixed green salad with the usual cucumber, tomatoes, red peppers, celery, radish, red onion. As it was our main meal we added finely chopped melon, parmesan shavings and prosciutto. Toasted pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds sprinkled on top. We ate it with barbequed lamb kofta kebabs (and the bread).

Way to go!

Here's a mackerel free idea for you.

Cook some couscous and chill it. Season and mix through a dash of sweet chilli sauce.

Add chopped cooked chicken, halved cherry toms and some sliced roasted peppers.

Serve it up with rocket, cucumber and a raita dressing on the side.

will have to try that combo, its all stuff we eat anyway. Thanks

Hello

Here's an easy one.

Peeled sliced orange

2 sliced tomatoes

Teaspoon of toasted pine nuts

1tbspn oil oil

1tspn lemon juice

Tbspn chopped fresh mint

Or mandolin thin sliced raw fennel

hard goats cheese shavings

Sliced beetroat

Flat leaf parsley

Standard dressing (1tbspn olive oil, 1tspn white wine vinegar, salt to taste, crushed garlic to taste)

Mandolin finely sliced raw onion (a limited amount)

2p thick slices apple (braeburn)

1 tbspn toasted walnuts

A few leaves

Standard dressing

There, there,s a start.

My understanding is that to make the best of the delicate flavour of salads, one really shouldnt plsce a book on it.

;-)