Salads for February

You've heard the expression wet lettuce? Well there is something about lettuce and February that simply doesn't fit. OK, for my teenage son - a serious salad addict - yes, but for the rest of us, bulking up a salad is essential to meet the challenge of chill grey days. So, start with potatoes and beans - fresh or frozen:

Steam potatoes in their skins, and peel while still warm because it is easier. Chill and then cut into rough cubes. Dress them in a bowl with olive oil, lemon juice and finely chopped parsley and chives if you have them. Trim and cut up the beans and steam them until just done but still firm. Wash dry and tear up any leaves you might have like lettuce or frisee. Grill or fry a couple of slices of smoked bacon until crisp and crumble it, if you like – but the salad is very nice without. Make a dressing with a crushed clove of garlic, red wine vinegar, olive oil and seasonings. Combine beans and potato and dress them. Serve on a bed of lettuce leaves, with crumbled bacon over the top. Crumbled salty fetta cheese would be an option as well.

An extension of this would be Salade Nicoise. Combine lettuce, cooked beans and potatoes, slices of onion, hard boiled eggs, anchovy fillets and best tinned tuna. Toss in the same dressing. Or you could sear on a hot griddle pann some thin slices of fresh tuna and serve them on top of the bean, potato and lettuce salad with a few fine slices of onion.

All about Salsa

I learned salsa for a while. The teacher was small and quite round, and I rode about on his belly, my feet seldom touching the floor. I realise I am fine freestyle, but frankly trying to learn choreography is not for me. Once a singer in a Cuban band jumped down off the stage and whirled me around the floor when I was doing my freestyle thing - the thrill of it! - so it can't be too bad.

Anyway, this is a different kind of salsa as this is a food blog! These piquant mini-salads provide a delicious counterpoint to grilled meats and sausage. They can also stand as a first course on their own - scooped onto slices of sourdough bread, which you have either barbecued or toasted, and then rubbed with the cut edge of a garlic clove. The key to the flavouring is sweet and sour - combinations of vegetables, fruit and seasonings, chopped small and kept distinct, but not pureed. Below is a blue print: Vegetable element Peel (by pouring over boiling water to the count of 12 - the skin just slips off when you slice through it with a sharp knife) and dice tomato, cucumber, peppers, (which you have peeled by singing them on an open flame and removing charred skin under the cold tap). Also radishes, celery etc.

Go for crisp and cold. Fruit element Peel and finely dice, mango, peach, nectarine, melon, apple, pear, pineapple. Seasoning element Salt, freshly ground black pepper, lime, lemon, orange zest and juice, white wine or red wine or cider vinegar or tarragon wine vinegar. You can add poppy seeds or lightly toasted sesame seeds, if it seems a good idea. Allium element Peel and dice, shallots, spring onions or mild red onion; plus garlic. If the onions are very strong use just a little. Hot element Deseed and finely chop green or red chillies - or use Tabasco or another chilli sauce. Herb element Chopped basin, tarragon, coriander, parsley, chives, mint.

For instance, a simple combination of peach, tomato, chilli, garlic, shallot, basic and lime juice and zest, with a splash of olive oil would go very nice with grilled chicken. Or, apple, cucumber, mint, lemon juice and zest, green chilli, and spring onion with seasonings would be nice with organic lamb or pork. Or apple, orange juice and zest, tomato, shallot, a drop of red wine vinegar, red chilli and a touch of garlic, would be good with grilled duck breast. Don't be afraid to experiment with what you have by you; the simplest, zesty, sweet and sour, little combination would lift an everyday grill into another level entirely.

Courgette Salad

Top and tail courgettes. Steam whole for a few minutes until hot through but still firm. Dress with oil and lemon juice and sprinkle with fresh dill, parsley etc. Roll around to coat, and leave until room temperature before eating, when they should have absorbed some flavour.

Aubergine & Roast Tomato Salad

tomatoes Slice aubergine crossways, and sprinkle with salt, leaving to drain in a colander for an hour or so. Lightly oil a griddle pan, preferably with raised bumps for a nice charred pattern, and toast the aubergine slices on both sides until soft. Set aside. Cut plum tomatoes in half lengthways, and roast in the oven with a little olive oil and herbs until slightly blackened. Crumble some feta cheese and wash green leaves. Make a dressing with lemon juice, a trace of garlic, mustard, salt, pepper and olive oil. Assemble leaves on the plate, piling the other vegetables on top artistically, and sprinkling with the cheese. Dress at the last minute with the dressing. Good first course.

Baba Ganouk

Pop aubergines directly onto the gas flame and allow to blacken all over. Then cut off the tops, and scrape the softened flesh off the burnt skin. In a bowl, mash into the flesh a tblspn of the best organic tahini - I use quite a rough one - a clove of garlic, about three tblspns Greek yoghurt, and juice of half a lemon plus salt to taste. Mash thoroughly, but leaving some texture behind. Allow flavours to blend in fridge overnight when it will slightly set. When you are ready to spread, heat a frying pan, and toast for seconds only some sesame seeds until just golden (watch like hawk). Spread the aubergine mixture onto the toasts, and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Salad Facon Maman Blanc

This is one of those delicious salads that are served simply as a matter of course in French provincial restaurants. Raymond Blanc is miraculously self taught, but his mother and grandmother, with their in-built culinary excellence, have served as inspiration at the very least. Whisk together 1 tblpsn tarragon wine vinegar, with 3 tblspns grapeseed or peanut oil and one of hazelnut oil, plus salt and freshly ground black pepper. Pour the dressing into a large bowl. Add plenty of torn lettuce of different varieties if possible. Scatter over grated Gruyere, slivers of ham, sliced mushrooms, and a handful of toasted hazelnuts that you have lightly crushed. Toast hazelnuts in the oven, watching like a hawk, until just golden, then crush in a pestle and mortar. You could make this salad just with the cheese and nuts and leave out the ham. Toss and serve immediately.

How to revive droopy lettuce

If you forget about a lettuce in your fridge, and it gets slightly droopy, try this odd sounding tip from a French friend. Fill the sink with warm (yes warm) water, and plunge the divided lettuce in the water for about five minutes. Then toss in the spinner, and spin like mad. You will find it will have firmed up in the most extraordinary way. Chop an onion very finely and marinate in about 2 tblspns white wine or cider vinegar. Take the zest off a lemon and an orange and squeeze. Add the two juices and zests to the vinegar and shallots, plus a pinch of salt and Cut two grapefruits in half, and with a small sharp knife cut out each little section leaving its pith behind. Believe me, it is very much worth doing this. Cut a couple of avocados in half, and take the pip out. Cut in strips in the skin, then scoop out with a big spoon. Whisk in olive oil to taste to the citrus juice mixture. Toss torn lettuce in a bowl with grapefruit segments and avocado slices, and dress with dressing. Season with more salt if you like.