Beetroot, Pear and Feta Salad with Orange Balsamic Reduction

 This is a gorgeous salad and a must try. Even my Dad who is a little conservative in his tastes (as he ages, else it was he who was the ultimate foodie when I was growing up!!) loved it and had second and third helpings. I initially made this for this dinner with friends and served it with a Lamb Chilli and Spaghetti Aglio - E Olio, but it is so simple that this can be a quick addition for an everyday meal with just pasta or even grilled chicken or fish.

The original idea comes from Feast on Cheap which has the beets roasted in her version while I pressure cooked them. Indian beets must be different because they just didn't cook in the oven after all that time. Pressure cooking was way simpler. Also, the orange balsamic reduction is from another recipe of hers but I liked it so much I incorporated it into this one. I omitted the onions/shallots in the original recipe because Indian onions are quite pungent. Be sure to mix the pears and the beets only when ready to serve because otherwise the pears will turn blood red - my pic was taken after 15 minutes and its already red.

The sweet flavours of the beet and the pear are interpersed with a sharp tartness from the balsamic vinaigrette and heightened by the salty feta - my favourite!. Such a beautiful combination of flavours!!

Beetroot, Pear and Feta Salad with Orange Balsamic Reduction

(Adapted from Feast on Cheap)

Ingredients:
Beetroot - 3 medium
Pear - 1 ripe - firm variety
Feta Cheese crumbled - 1/2 cup (about 100 gm)
Walnuts - 1/2 cup (toasted and lightly rubbed to remove the peel)
Coriander leaves - 2-3 tbsp
Dressing:
Orange juice - 4 tbsp
Balsamic vinegar - 1/2 cup
Olive oil - 2tbsp
Lemon juice - 2 tsp
Grated giner - 1/2 tsp
Grated garlic - 1/2 tsp
Chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
Freshly crushed black pepper - 1/4 tsp
Salt to taste


1.  Put the beets into a vessel or directly in a pressure cooker, with a little water and cook for one whistle (8-10 minutes)
2. Meanwhile,  heat the balsamic vinegar and orange juice together on a medium flame till it reduces to half (about 4-5 minutes), stirring occasionally.
3. Whisk in all the other ingredients of the dressing along with the orange juice reduction and keep aside to allow the flavours to meld.
4. Once the pressure cooker can be opened and the beets have cooled, peel them, cut the ends and then cut into 1" cubes or thinner (I did thinner slices). Place in the salad bowl you will be serving them in.
5.Cut the pears into very thin slices. Crumble the feta cheese.
6. Add the toasted walnuts, feta cheese, and pears to the beets and toss with the dressing till well mixed. Garnish with chopped coriander. Serve immediately.
7. To make ahead and serve later, toss the beets in 1/2 the dressing and refrigerate covered. In another bowl. In another bowl, add the feta, pears and walnuts and rerigerate covered. Just before serving, add the pears, walnuts and feta to the beet bow, toss with the remaining dressing and garnish with chopped coriander.

Insalata Caprese

This is a beautiful salad - Toninos on M G Road makes a lovely one - this is the first time I made it at home. Simple and delicious. Tomatoes, Mozarella Cheese, crushed pepper, salt, extra virgin olive oil and parsley (should have been basil leaves but didn't find any). Less than 5 ingredients to Nirvana

Basically, just slice and layer the tomatoes and the mozarella and then drizzle the olive oil, season and garnish with herbs. The important thing is to use really fresh and good quality ingredients - so the tomatoes should be nice and juicy, some nice mozarella and extra virgin olive oil.

Warm Potato Salad - Nigella Express

One of the dishes I made for this lunch with friends - I liked the recipe as soon as I saw it in the book Nigella Express - the combination of bacon, mustard and potatoes seemed like a great idea. It helped though that I had bacon at home - its not something I usually have at home.

I used small sized potatoes, but since these were not new potatoes (which have very thin skins), I peeled them after boiling and halving them. I used spring onions instead of scallions and used the greens as a garnish.

I thought that the bacon would make the dish salty and so went easy on the salt, but it turned out a tad on the lower side. Apparently, the crisper the bacon is fried, the saltier it gets - so next time crisper is the way to go. This is comfort food - the lovely taste of potatoes enveloped in the slightly creamy dressing cut with the sharpness of mustard.....

And there will definitely be a next time - I want to try this with a lovely vinaigrette of vinegar, mustard and pine nuts I saw somewhere. Tossed with warm potatoes and bits of spinach - bet it would be wonderful!

Warm Potato Salad

3/4 kg small/baby potatoes
6 spring onions thinly sliced, greens reserved
1 tbsp olive oil
4 slices bacon
2 tsp white wine vinegar
2 tbsp mustard (Colemans)

1. Cook the potatoes with skin in salted water till cooked - 20-25 minutes. Cool, peel and cut in half.
2. Heat oil in a pan and cook the bacon until crisp. Remove and keep aside.
3. In the same pan, saute the onions for about 2 minutes and remove from flame.
4. Add the vinegar and mustard and then the potatoes and mix together. Transfer to a serving bowl.
5. Just before serving, crumble the bacon and mix into the salad reserving some for garnish on top along with the onion greens.

Grilled Chicken with Caesar Salad Dressing

This is the quasi Caesar salad which I had mentioned making along with the Coconut Lentil Soup I posted last week. The classic Caesar salad usually has a dressing of olive oil, mustard, Worcestershire sauce and egg mixed together with mashed anchovy fillets and tossed with a bread croutons and lettuce topped with grated parmesan cheese. Culinary lore tells us that this salad dates back to the 1920s when it was created by an Italian chef called Caesar Cardini and it was meant to be tossed right at the table - it apparently still is done like that with a lot of flair in a few restaurants in New York.

I have seen a lot of Caesar salads with chicken here in India - apparently it is not part of the original recipe. This particular recipe is so loosely adapted from the original that if it changed anymore it would be like a well worn sock!
But I do have some expert backing on this - I vaguely remember Jamie Oliver roasting bread croutons and chicken together before tossing it with a Caesar salad dressing. My version of course deviates from even his version in that, I didn't use anchovies, pancetta or creme fraiche and instead roasted some vegetables as well along with the chicken. So - suffice to say - this is a grilled chicken salad! :)

The chicken infused the bread croutons with its juices while roasting and it was absolutely great to bite into those crisp squares. Instead of using a raw egg in the dressing, I coddled the egg - which is basicaly means boiling the whole egg in water for not more than 45 seconds. I was also liberal with the garlic and herb and it ended up making a great meal with the combination of the soup to start with and a bowl of watermelon to finish.

Grilled Chicken Salad

Whole Wheat Bread - 3 slices cut into 1/2 " cubes.
300gms chicken breast sliced and marinated in:
- 1 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tsp olive oil and salt to taste
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion peeled and cut into squares
1 bell pepper cut into squares
1 tbsp dried herbs
3 cloves garlic chopped
Lettuce leaves, washed,dried and torn - 2 cups
5 tbsp Grated Parmesan cheese

Dressing:
1 clove garlic finely chopped
3 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp mustard (Dijon is preferable)
1 egg coddled (boiled in water for 45 seconds and cooled)
5 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp freshly ground pepper
salt to taste

1. Combine the marinated chicken pieces with the bread cubes, 2 tbsp olive oil, onion and pepper squares, herbs and salt.
2. Roast in a pre heated oven at 180C for about 15-20 minutes till the chicken is cooked and tender and the bread is crisp.
3. For the dressing , mix Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice,minced garlic, salt, crushed pepper and mustard.Crack the coddled egg and whisk into the other ingredients. Add the olive oil slowly while continuing to whisk constantly so that it doesn't separate.
4. Arrange half the chicken pieces and half the bread croutons in a bowl and toss with half of the dressing. Add the remaining salad and the remaining dressing and toss again.
5. Put in the torn lettuce and toss again. Sprinkle the grated cheese on top and serve warm or cold.

I make sure never to serve raw or undercooked eggs to children; pregnant women too should be very careful while eating dressings which may contain raw eggs.

Mushroom, Red Pepper and Broccoli Roasted Salad

Summer makes me crave for foods which are light on the stomach - thin soups, cold pasta tossed with herbs, gourd vegetables, rasam and rice with bhindi sabzi (okra stir fry), koshambir (tempered salads with grated veggies), watermelon juice, buttermilk by the gallon, papaya and musk melon cubes, cold aamras (mango pulp) with chapatis....

.....AND raw mango - to me raw mangoes are inextricably linked with summer. Must be something to do with growing up in a "colony" in Mumbai which had about 5 mango trees -with atleast three of them bearing fruit every summer. So a gang of girls and boys would spend every afternoon of our summer holidays plucking fruit with the help of a contraption of long bamboo sticks tied together with rope, a knife tied to the end and a bag hanging under it. Then we would have a "kairi party" - salt, red chilli powder and a dash of lime juice (all stealthily taken from someone's kitchen) would be sprinkled over the cut pieces of mango and devoured. One particular summer when I was about 13 or 14, I ate so much raw mango that I had a severe stomach upset and was almost dehydrated! That spelled the end of mangoes that year for me....

So, tell me what are your favourite foods to eat during the summer - now and in your childhood?

The recipe I am going to post is not one I had during the summers of my childhood - I didn't even taste broccoli and mushrooms till much later. But it has become a favourite of mine - vegetables roasted in a little bit of oil and flavoured with herbs, spices and vinegar or lime juice. Infinite variations are possible and each one tastes a little bit different from the others - let your imagination flow!

I am sending this to Easycrafts Fun 'n' Sun event being hosted all this month at Simple Indian Food.

Mushroom, Pepper and Broccoli Roasted Salad

Ingredients:

Button mushrooms - 8-10 washed and cut lengthwise
Broccoli - 1 cup florets
Red Pepper - 1 (can be yellow, red or green) deseeded and cut into 1 " squares
Tomatoes - pulp removed and cut into 1 " squares OR cherry tomatoes halved
Spring onions - white part sliced OR Onions - separated into layers and cut into squares
Garlic cloves - 2-3 crushed

Olive oil - 1 1/2 tbsp
salt to taste
Freshly crushed pepper - 1 tsp
Mixed dried herbs - 1 tbsp
Freshly chopped mint or coriander leaves - 1/4 cup
Lime juice - 2 tbsp
Red wine vinegar - 1 tbsp

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Take a roasting pan or a shallow oven proof dish and mix all the chopped vegetables.
2. Drizzle 1 tbsp olive oil over the vegetables, season with salt, pepper and the dried herbs
3. Roast the vegetables for 8 to 10 minutes and then check whether it is a little tender but still a bit crunchy. If it needs a little more roasting, drizzle the half tablespoon of olive oil and roaste for 4-5 minutes more.
4. Remove from oven and drizzle the remaining olive oil if not already used on top of the vegetables and transfer to a serving dish.
5. Mix the lemon juice, vinegar, chopped coriander or mint and toss the salad briefly. Cool and serve.

Note: You can use almost any other vegetable in this salad - carrots, babycorn, peas and french beans go well - but root vegetables like sweet potatoes and potatoes will take longer to cook.

I am sending this luscious salad to the monthly event - No Croutons Required - hosted alternatively by Lisa and Holler. This month's edition is being hosted by Lisa and the theme is a salad or soup centred around mushrooms.

For a fresh salad without roasting vegetables, try this Babycorn, Cherry tomatoes and Sprouts Salad with Feta Cheese

Babycorn, Cherry Tomatoes & Sprouts Salad with Feta Cheese

This is a beautiful salad - winter fresh veggies and lightly steamed sprouts drizzled with a light salad dressing bursting with the tanginess of lime; its piquant flavour balanced with crumbly salty feta cheese and crunchy lettuce.

Delightfully light and yet so satisfying that you can make it your meal - my friend almost did and I had to steer him gently to the rest of the dishes on the table!

One forkful says it all - no stories needed.

This salad made so flavourful with a simple lime juice dressing goes to Jihva for Ingredients - Lime/Lemon being hosted at The Spice Cafe this month; the event itself is the brainchild of Indira of Mahanandi and while I have been following it for a long time now, this is the first time I am contributing.

Babycorn, Cherry Tomatoes & Sprouts Salad with Feta Cheese

Babycorn - 6-8
Cherry tomatoes - 100gms
Mixed bean sprouts - 100 gms
Coriander leaves - handful
Iceberg Lettuce - 3-4 leaves
Spring onions - 3-4 (not the greens)
Feta cheese - 4-5 tablespoons - crumbled or diced into small pieces

Dressing:
Juice of one small lime
Red wine vinegar - 1 tablespoon
Olive oil - 2 tablespoon
Salt
Freshly crushed black pepper


1. Wash the babycorn and cut lengthwise into halves. Rinse the sprouts.
2. Boil salted water in a large vessel and add the babycorn and sprouts to it. Turn off the gas after a minute and keep covered for another 3 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, wash and halve the cherry tomatoes. Slice the spring onions thinly.Wash the coriander leaves and lettuce thoroughly, drain water and keep aside. Crumble or dice the feta cheese.
4. Combine dressing ingredients, mixing them together briskly.
5. Drain the babycorn and sprouts;keep aside till cool.
6. Take a salad bowl and put in the babycorn, tomatoes, sprouts and onions, tear the lettuce into bite sized pieces and add it along with the whole coriander leaves - then toss in the feta cheese.
7. Pour in the salad dressing a little at a time and gently toss till well combined.