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Category Archives: Salads

Lentil and Potato Salad

23 Sunday Jun 2019

Posted by Fabric of Madness in Dinner, lentils, Salads, Uncategorized, Vegetables

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comfortfood, lentils, potato salad, potatoes, salad, winter

It is winter and some comfort food never goes amiss.   This recipe comes from Smitten Kitchen, my go to blog for tasty recipes.    I didn’t change it up too much – except for substituting Coriander for Parsley – the Coriander in the garden looked much, much too good not to use.     And I also paired the salad with another Smitten Kitchen recipe – Chicken Skewers with Dukkah – though took Deb’s suggestion of omitting the skewers.   Next time I think I would halve the dukkah and sub panko crumbs.  They were still tasty though – and great with aioli and a home-made chilli tomato chutney.    In fact the aioli and chutney go great with the salad too.

Lentil & Potato Salad

Serves between 4 and 6

2 large shallots, 1 halved, 1 finely diced,
4 sprigs of thyme
1 small bay leaf
1 cup dry small green lentils (smaller keep their shape better)
Salt and pepper
500g small potatoes
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar (my cupboard was bare, so used white wine vinegar with a splash of red wine that just happened to be open….)
1 to 2 garlic cloves, minced or smashed to a paste (your preference)
1 tablespoon smooth Dijon mustard
1/4 cup of olive oil
2 teaspoons capers, rinsed, drained and roughly chopped
2 tablespoons cornichons or other sour gherkins, roughly chopped
1 to 2 spring onions, thinly sliced
1/2 cup chopped coriander

Cook lentils: Pick over and rinse lentils. Place them in a small/medium saucepan with the halved shallot, thyme, bay leaf, some salt and 4 cups of water. Simmer the lentils over medium heat for 25 to 30 minutes, until firm-tender. Drain (discarding shallot, thyme and bay leaf) and keep warm.

Meanwhile, cook potatoes: Either boil or steam – until they are tender, but not too soft. Drain and keep warm.

Make the dressing: Place the chopped shallot and red wine vinegar in the bottom of a small bowl and let sit for 5 minutes. Whisk in minced garlic, dijon, a pinch of salt, a few grinds of black pepper and olive oil. Stir in chopped capers, cornichon and scallions.

Assemble salad: Slice potatoes into small chunks and place in serving bowl. Add lentils, dressing and all but 1 tablespoon coriander and combine. Adjust seasoning with additional salt and pepper if needed. Scatter salad with remaining coriander.

This can be a stand-alone lunch, maybe add a poached egg, or as a side.  Can be reheated – and keeps in fridge for up to 5 days. Enjoy!

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Thai Beef Salad

22 Wednesday Aug 2018

Posted by Fabric of Madness in Beef, Dinner, Salads, Uncategorized, Vegetables

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asian, Beef, Chilli, Salads, Sprouts, Thai, vegetables

it isn’t very often Mr MWCED or myself eat red meat.  Indeed it’s a rare occasion – and quite honestly I don’t think I have bought a piece of beef for many years (apart from the odd steak when lovely son comes home – just for him).  So interestingly it happened that we were both hankering for some red meat but not a lot of it,  and this salad seemed the perfect solution.

You could use a less expensive piece of steak, in which case I would marinate it overnight.  I wasn’t that organised and the meat was marinating for only a couple of hours.  I cooked the steak in the frying pan and once it was reasonably browned I then spooned some of the marinade over it until it was done.  The marinade caramelises and makes the outer part of the steak very tasty.

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Steak

  • 1 ½-inch piece ginger, peeled, finely chopped, or 1 tablespoon pre-minced ginger
  • ¼ cup soy sauce
  • 3 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
  • 1 tablespoon fish sauce
  • ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • ½ teaspoon garlic powder, garlic granules, or freshly chopped garlic
  • ¼ cup olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
  • 500g fillet steak (expensive, but absolutely the best for this dish – and you don’t really need a lot, if there are just 2 of you, you could use a bit less steak)
  • salt

Dressing

  • ¼ cup fresh lime juice
  • ¼ cup hot chilli paste (you could also use freshly chopped chilli)
  • ¼ cup peanut oil
  • 2 tablespoons fish sauce
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1 tablespoon honey
  • 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
  • Salt (optional)

Salad

  • Salad greens, enough for 2 (I used a mix of cos and curly lettuce from the garden)
  • 1 x carrot, grated
  • 2 spring onions, chopped
  • 1 red pepper, diced
  • ½ cucumber, diced
  • 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
  • 1 cup sprouts (we had some fresh mung bean sprouts on the windowsill, so in they went)
  • ½ cup chopped coriander
  • ½ cup torn basil leaves
  • ¼ cup torn mint leaves
  • ¼ cup finely chopped salted, roasted peanuts, plus more for serving
  • Lime wedges (for serving)

Preparation

  • Whisk ginger, soy sauce, sugar, lime juice, fish sauce, pepper, and garlic in a small bowl until sugar is dissolved. Whisking constantly, gradually add olive oil, then sesame oil. Transfer to glass bowl and add steaks. If you can, chill at least 6 hours and up to 12 hours, but you can still do this with an hour or two of marinating.  (As noted above, tougher cuts of meat will do better with longer marinating).
  • Prepare a grill for medium-high heat. Remove steaks from marinade and pat dry. Season very lightly with salt. Grill, turning every 2 minutes, until lightly charred all over, and finished to your preference (i.e. medium rare, medium). Instead of grilling you could also cook quickly in a frying pan.  Transfer to a cutting board and let rest at least 10 minutes before cutting into 1″ pieces.

Dressing

  • Whisk lime juice, chilli paste, peanut oil, fish sauce, sugar, honey, and garlic in a small bowl to combine. Taste and season with salt if desired.

Combine salad ingredients.   Pour 2/3 dressing over them, then add steak and peanuts and pour over rest of dressing.  Alternatively, you can keep some dressing to have on the side.   Garnish with extra coriander and mint.

 

This could also be served with noodles or rice.  Though it was excellent without and plenty for 2 of us.

 

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Rustic Chicken Empanadas

10 Sunday Sep 2017

Posted by Fabric of Madness in chicken, Dinner, Pies, Salads, Uncategorized, Vegetables

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Tags

chicken, empanadas, pastry, Salads, vegetables

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Mr MWCED makes a mean pork empanada, however I had borrowed a cook book from the library and saw a chicken empanada recipe and decided that was worth trying.  The book was one of Annabel Langbein’s, love her style, and is virtually the same as her recipe though I have changed some of the measurements.

The other thing that intrigued me was that this recipe uses Kumara (sweet potato) instead of plain old potato.  Now that in itself is worth trying the recipe for,  though to be honest I don’t usually like Kumara but thought that as it is grated the taste will probably be muted.  And so it was.  A good trick to get fussy people (a la me) to mix up their vege intake.

I’ve called these ‘rustic’ because I didn’t take too much care and attention in ensuring that each pastry was nicely folded and crimped.  I was a bit short of time – we were just about to sit down and watch the ABs play Argentina – and who wants to miss any game time!    We found that 2 empanadas each was Plenty.  Making eight means that we have frozen half of them and they can be a meal another time.    And they definitely will be another meal – as they tasted great.

We ate a coleslaw with the empanadas.  It was a mix of green cabbage and some red cabbage leaves from the garden (though they were dark green), and a couple of ‘red’ spring onions which had sprung from the compost.  Oh, don’t you love the magic of compost when it nutures seeds and then throws up wonderful surprises!

Rustic Chicken Empanadas
Serves 4

500g Chicken mince
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed or finely chopped
3 tbsp tomato pate
2 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp chilli flakes
1 tsp soft brown sugar
1 small green pepper, cored and diced
1 medium kumara, peeled and grated
¾ cup water
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
handful of chopped fresh coriander
1 beaten egg, to glaze.

Yoghurt and Olive Oil Pastry
3 cups high-grade white flour
1-1/2 tsp salt
¾ cup olive oil
1 cup natural yoghurt

Pastry: combine flour and salt and add to bowl of food processor. Add oil and yoghurt to flour and mix until dough forms a ball. Turn out onto a lightly floured bench and knead 10 or 12 times until smooth. Wrap in plastic wrap and put in refrigerator for around 30 minutes. You don’t have to use this immediately, it will keep wrapped in the fridge for a week or can be frozen.

Chicken Filling: heat a large frypan and cook chicken in oil until no longer pink, breaking it up into a fine crumb with the ack of a spoon. Add grlic, tomato paste, cumin, chilli and sugar and cook for 2 minutes. Add green pepper, kumara, water, salt and pepper and cook on medium heat until kumara is soft, about 5 minutes. Mixture should not be sloppy, so cook for a bit longer if necessary.   At end of cooking add coriander.

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Chicken mix before adding liquid

Preheat oven to 180C fanbake and line an oven tray with baking paper. Form pastry into a log and divide into 8 evenly sized pieces. Roll each piece out to a circle around 20cm diameter (about the size of a bread and butter plate). Place 2 tablespoons of mixture on one half of each circle, leaving a 1cm pastry rim.

Fold pastry in half to enclose filling and then roll in and crimp edges to seal firmly. Brush with egg wash and bake until golden, about 20 minutes. Serve warm or cooled. Can be stored in fridge, cooked, for up to 4 days or freeze then thaw and reheat.

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Coleslaw:  No measurements –  just chop finely some green and red cabbage (though as I said earlier my red cabbage leaves were green – go figure).  Add to cabbage a pinch of sugar and salt.  Mix this through cabbage – best with your hands.  Add chopped onion, red pepper and anything else you would like.  I would normally add some grated carrot but we were carrot-less. Throw in some chopped parsley too.  Then make a mayo.  Mine was a mix of cider vinegar (about 1 teaspoon), some sour cream, some mayonnaise and a big dollop of dijonnaise, followed by salt and pepper to taste.

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