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Another dish I made for my Arabian Nights feast: a smooth, flavourful salad of chickpeas with yoghurt, cumin, coriander (cilantro) and mint. Using fresh chickpeas would make this even tastier; just make sure you soak them overnight. I sprinkled this with pomegranate seeds just before serving - pretty and delicious.
Chickpea & Yoghurt Salad
400g (14 oz) tin chickpeas, well rinsed and drained
3/4 cup plain Greek yoghurt
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp caster (superfine) sugar (or ordinary sugar)
1 small handful coriander (cilantro) leaves, roughly chopped
1 small handful mint leaves, roughly chopped
1 tsp salt
pomegranate seeds (optional)
Mix the chickpeas, yoghurt, ground cumin, sugar, coriander, mint and salt in a bowl and stir to combine thoroughly. Adjust the seasoning if necessary, cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving. Sprinkle with pomegranate seeds to serve.
Is there such a thing as a light potato salad? Probably not. Potato is one of the earth's heavier substances, and that's as it should be. But when the weather warms and you're baking pork chops and you want a little something on the side, but the thought of mayonnaise or sour cream is too daunting, may I present this solution: a potato salad that's creamy with mustard and bright with parsley.
The dressing is loosely borrowed from a bean salad in Simon Hopkinson's Week In, Week Out, a compilation of 52 of his weekly food columns for The Independent. I love the way Hopkinson writes and cooks. He's unapologetically irritable - sort of the Simon Cowell of UK food writers. But he's also generous, passionate, perfectionist, uncompromising; and his food is so good.
I haven't specified the amount of potato - the recipe makes plenty of dressing, more than I needed for the pound of potatoes I cooked, so there's room for maneuver.
Creamy Mustard Potato Salad
small waxy-skinned potatoes (I used red Yukons)
1 tbsp smooth Dijon mustard
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1/2 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
4 tbsp warm water
150 ml peanut oil
150ml extra virgin olive oil
salt & pepper1 red onion, diced very fine
a handful of parsley
Peel the potatoes and place in a saucepan with plenty of water. Bring to the boil; add a dash of salt once boiling. From this point, cook the potatoes for 10-15 minutes, or until just tender. Drain.
While the potatoes are cooking, combine the mustard, red wine vinegar, garlic and warm water. Blend or whisk until smooth. Slowly add the oils and blend/whisk well until the dressing is creamy. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Fry the finely diced red onion in a little hot butter or oil for 3 or 4 minutes (if you like raw onion, feel free to omit this step).
Carefully cut the cooked potatoes into small chunks - whichever size you prefer, really. Toss with the dressing, the red onion, and a handful of parsley leaves, some chopped and some left whole. Add more salt and pepper if necessary.
This dressing is also delicious drizzled over barely-blanched green beans.
A winter salad for these final weeks of an epic season: sweet carrots, crisp cabbage and green onions with a simple soy and lime dressing. To the original dressing recipe, I added a drop of sesame oil and about 1/8 of a teaspoon of tamarind paste. The result is, I suppose, a cleaner, tarter species of coleslaw. I don't naturally incline toward salad on a winter's night, but this one left me optimistic about spring.
Cabbage & Carrot Salad
from Mark Bittman, How to Cook Everything
1 lb cabbage (the recipe calls for Napa or Savoy, but I used plain green), cored and shredded
2 carrots, peeled and grated
2 or 3 scallions (green/spring onions), minced
1/4 to 1/3 cup peanut oil
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice
1 tsp soy sauce
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Combine the vegetables. Whisk together the oil, lime juice, and soy; taste and add salt and pepper if necessary. Toss the dressing with the vegetables and serve.
