Category Archives: Salads

Watermelon Salad

Have you been watching “The Next Food Network Star”? It’s a good show: an honest look at what it takes to become an on-air food personality.

Last week’s loser, Eddie, forgot what show he was on–he probably thought he was on “Top Chef”–when he razzed working mom Melissa in the kitchen. Eddie, this show is all about image: you can’t pick on sweet, warm mother figures if you want to go far! Plus, for his dish, which he served to the grandest dame on FoodTV, Ina Garten, he pilfered a recipe from Paula Dean; a watermelon salad that I’ve shared with you before. Except, in Eddie’s version he used way too many onions. Those onions sent him packing: no one gives Ina Garten onion breath. But that salad is worth revisiting–it’s one of my favorites.

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The Barefoot Contessa’s Wheat Berry Salad

There are many words one might use to describe me–”enthusiastic,” “smiley,” “mildly irritating”–but “hippie” probably isn’t one of them. Sure, I may walk around in sandals in the summer, but who doesn’t? And true, Janice is my favorite Muppet and my aunt Cindy (my dad’s sister) was photographed blowing a bubble at Woodstock (see here) but I’m too neurotic to be a hippie. My motto isn’t “Free Love,” it’s “Wash Your Hands After Touching Your Shoelaces Because They’re Really Dirty.” Which leads to a very important question: if I’m not a hippie, how can it be possible that I have not one but TWO recipes for Wheat Berry salad?

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Wheat Berry Salad

There are two kinds of cravings: the bad kind and the good kind. Most of us are familiar with the bad kind: it sends us to Dunkin’ Donuts at 2 AM, keen on devouring a stale toasted coconut doughnut beneath the fluorescent glare. It’s the craving that forces hamburgers when you should be thinking salad, it’s the craving that tells you to add cream to that tomato sauce to make it oh-that-much-more decadent. And lots of cheese. And to make brownies for dessert which you serve with vanilla ice cream.

So, yes, we all know that craving. But every now and then a different kind of craving comes along; it’s a rare craving, the kind of craving that if it happens to you, count yourself among the lucky: it’s a craving to eat something heathy. When this happens, the clouds part, the sun beats down on your face and a choir of angels bursts into song. Should you have this craving, there’s no better place to turn than to my friend Heidi’s excellent cookbook, Super Natural Cooking.

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Chickpea Salad

Cheap and easy: that’s my new motto (and reputation), especially at lunch. Yes–times are hard, even for your friendly Amateur Gourmet. “But you just went to Momofuku Ko,” you might say and I’d say back, “Yes, and wiped myself clean!” Especially now that I’ve done my taxes: to quote my rabbi, “Oy!”

No more lunches out, then: from now on it’s sandwiches and leftovers. And the occasional chickpea salad like the one you see above.

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Killer Salads

I’ve been making some killer dinner salads lately and I’d like to share with you my technique.

I subscribe to the “stuff” philosophy of salad-making which is, essentially, that the best part of a salad is the “stuff,” not the lettuce. So my salads have no lettuce: just lots of stuff mixed together in a bowl with a homemade vinaigrette. The salad above, for example, has chopped up carrots, peppers, cherry tomatoes, red onion, bacon, avocado and blue cheese. The salad below, on the other hand, has peppers, carrots, onions, green beans, and chickpeas:

So here’s how I make a great salad. Buy your ingredients–they don’t have to be fancy or even from the farmer’s market, I got mine from my crappy Key Foods–bring them home and wash them and dry them well. Then cut your ingredients into big pieces and throw them into a bowl.

In a smaller bowl, place an egg yolk (that’s my dressing secret), a big spoonful of spicy French mustard and about 2 Tbs of balsamic vinegar with salt and pepper and whisk together. Then, slowly, drizzle in–drop by drop–your favorite olive oil, whisking all the time. If you do it correctly, it’ll stay thick and emulsified and you’ll ahve a creamy, tangy, colorful dressing for which to dress your salad.

Then pour about half the dressing over the vegetables, crumble on some really good blue cheese (the kind that has a name–like Danish Blue, which I used), grind some pepper over the bowl and mix it all together with a big spoon. Taste a bite and see if it needs more dressing, if it needs more cheese. Adjust accordingly and serve with some crusty bread which you’ve heated in the oven.

It may not be the healthiest salad on the block, but its certainly a healthier alternative to that fast food burger you were thinking of scarfing down from immoral cows.

Bon appetit.

Orangette’s Butternut Squash and Chickpea Salad with Tahini

Going through old pictures, just now, I found the picture you see above and smacked my lips at the memory: “Hey!” my brain sang out. “That’s that delicious butternut squash and chickpea salad with tahini you made from Orangette’s website.”

According to the picture, I made this on December 19th. So please follow this link to Orangette’s recipe (it’s an adapted recipe, so lets not give her ALL the credit) and take a picture, date it, and bury it away so you can have the same experience I just had. Then make it again as I plan to make it again quite soon.

Spring To Summer Salad

Summer is here, and yet spring is still finishing it’s run at the farmer’s market. Featured in the bowl above you will see my favorite springtime vegetable: sugar snap peas. I bought a whole bunch Saturday at Union Square and created my new signature Spring To Summer Salad. To make the salad, I just stringed the snap peas (you pull the little tail across the pea until the string is gone), boiled some beets (I know chefs love to roast them, but I like boiling better and think the result is just the same–you drop in boiling water (with some vinegar and salt) and then, when you can get a knife through the beet, it’s done), peeled some carrots, sliced some radishes and then hard boiled those eggs. To get your eggs pretty like mine, just place the eggs at the bottom of a saucepan, cover with cold water, put on the heat, when it comes just to the boil, put the lid on, turn the heat off and wait 15 minutes. Then drop the eggs in ice water, peel under a faucet, and wha-la: pretty eggs. I tossed all those vegetables with really good olive oil, some balsamic vinegar (and a splash of red when I ran out of balsamic), salt, pepper and it was quite a feast. But to gild the lily, I placed a giant wedge of Cato Farm’s blue cheese on top and served with some olive bread. And that’s what I call a Spring to Summer Salad.

I invented a salad.

The inspiration came from my stomach: after making a BLT for dinner (an awesome BLT, inspired by Nancy Silverton’s sandwich book, with avocado instead of tomato and tarragon in the mayonnaise) i was still hungry. I opened my fridge and saw fresh cut pineapple I’d bought earlier in the day. So I removed that, I removed the tarragon, I dug in and found a big leftover chunk of ricotta salata, half a Vidalia onion, and–most notably–the jar of June Taylor’s Meyer Lemon & Rosemary Marmalade which I purchased at the San Francisco Ferry Building:

I sliced the pineapple uniformly, I diced the onion into a small dice, and shredded the tarragon. Then I tossed them all on a plate with some olive oil, salt and pepper, crumbled over the ricotta salata and–in a move inspired by David Chang’s use of lychee gele in the glorious apple salad I had at Ssam bar–spooned the Meyer Lemon marmalade on top.

The result was surprising and exciting. The tartness of the lemon balanced the sweetness of the pineapple, offset by the creaminess of the cheese and the herbiness of the tarragon. I felt like a 3-star chef primed for my very own James Beard award. I applauded myself voraciously, devoured the salad, cleaned up the mess, watched “The View” on Tivo and went to bed. It was a magical night.