It’s dead-easy
Christmas is still ahead of us and we seem to have had a long, hot summer already. This is the time for cool salads and chilled white wine. The dressing makes this one a beauty, but don’t read further if you’re on low-fat everything. But you might want to ask yourself why all the people on low-fat food are overweight. I’m persuaded that cutting down on carbohydrates is more effective so I don’t worry about fat much.
Salad as a salad
We’ll cover several variations here, and the first one is a salad to accompany barbecued fish, chicken or meat. Vegetarians will find it good enough to eat on its own, though, and it’ll look a lot better than this one by the time we’re finished.
Here are the ingredients for our spectacular salad:
Mignonette lettuce
Raddiccio
Rocket
Basil leaves
Baby spinach leaves
Asparagus tops, thin or sliced in half
Snow peas
Swiss brown mushrooms, thinly sliced
Grape tomatoes, whole or bigger ones chopped
Fennel bulb, cut into very fine strips
Rinse through in a colander, let drip-dry and transfer to a big salad dish. Then add:
Semi-sundried tomatoes
Pitted dark Olives
Fetta cut into smallish cubes
Anchovies (optional)
Now for the blue cheese/mayonnaise/yoghurt dressing. It’s a bit over the top, I admit, but it’s a doddle to make and turns a simple salad into a serious dish. The yoghurt should be low-fat or light to balance the full-on mayo and cheese. ALL you need is:
Whole egg natural mayonnaise (like S&W)
Light natural plain yoghurt (smooth, low-fat)
Soft blue Castello cheese
2 tblspoons lemon juice
The ratio is about 2 table spoons of mayo to 3/4 of yoghurt to 50g of Castello. You can adjust this to suit your taste, i.e. use more yoghurt if you want a lighter dressing. If you’re making a bigger salad, raise the numbers but maintain the ratio.
The only trick is to take as much mayo and Castello as you plan to use out of the fridge half an hour before, to let it come to room temperature, then they’re easier to mix. Use a fork and blend the two into with the yoghurt.
You can serve it as a separate dressing, a good idea if you have low-fat types coming for lunch, or you can mix it with the salad. What you want to make sure of is enough dressing to thinly coat the tuna and salad. Don’t overdo it – you can always add more.
Variation 1: add some protein
EGG SALAD – Add some boiled eggs to the salad, cut in half
TUNA SALAD – Put a tin of tuna of two on top of the salad, or mix it in
CHICKEN SALAD – Add some fried chicken pieces or slices
BEEF SALAD – Add some beef, sliced thin
Variation 2: change the flavour of the dressing
If you lean toward Italy, you can use green or red or pink Pesto instead of Castello. (The red and pink make it look like a prawn cocktail dressing). Or you can look to France and use a quality grain mustard – your choice.
Dead simple, isn’t it?
Kim