Watermelon, Feta and Mint Salad with Lime and Cardammon

I don’t know about the rest of the world but down here it has been 33 degrees for the last few days. That is hot even for the kiwis, let alone somebody still used to Scottish temperatures. On the plus side I can get a watermelon bigger than my head for $2.99 - perfect to cool and rehydrate my melting body.

- Start by making a cardommon suger syrup. Bring to the boil 00ml of water and 200g of sugar, boil for 2minutes then turn off the heat and add half a teaspoon of ground cardommon seeds. Allow to cool.

This makes quite a lot but Rachel Allen says it will keep forever in the fridge. Although I dare you not to eat it all a lot sooner.

- Chop up your watermelon into chunks, mix with the same or a little less feta cheese, some salt and ground black pepper.

- Squeeze over the juice of a lime, and spoon over a few dessertspoonfuls of the cardammon syrup.

- Top with a handful of fresh mint leaves and pop back into the fridge to keep cool, but eat it quite soon.

We had ours with Coronation chicken and baked potatoes and then because it was so good I made some more the next day as a foil for some spicy salmon burgers.

A Bacon and Pear Salad

An Autumn salad, for that is when the pears ripen. But of course nowadays we can get just about anything we like all year round and my pears came from the United States. 

- Start by frying some bacon slices. I had some pancetta that Nicola’s brother kindly sent us as a Christmas present but unsmoked Streaky would be nice as well.
- Make a dressing. I used three tablespoons of olive oil (not extra virgin, just the ordinary stuff that I use for cooking) mixed with one of redwine vinegar along with two teaspoonfulls of grainy mustard and the same of damson jelly if you have it or honey if you do not, and a little salt and black pepper.
- Meanwhile fill some bowls with a little nest of green lettuce leaves - not iceberg please, but the floppy type that you get in the summer.
- Mix in a couple of sliced spring onions and some cucumber sliced thinly into discs and then cut again into semicircles.
-Take a pear and cut some wedge shaped slices vertically from it and tuck them in amongst the lettuce leaves.
- Once the bacon is just crispy, take it off the heat and tearing the slices into strips tuck them amongst the pear slices.
- Top with the dressing and serve immediately before the lettuce wilts from the heat of the bacon.

The idea of seasonal eating has always appealed to me, but it was not until we moved here to New Zealand from the UK that I actually tried it. Before it was always just such a temptation to have green beans or cherry tomatoes in the middle of Winter, but now I cannot describe the pleasure I get when the asparagus or cherries appear in the shops for that brief few weeks that they are available. It keeps me alive and inspired to cook new things. I like that.`

A Cool Green Salad

I struggle with Iceberg lettuce. It goes nicely with chicken or bacon, but on it’s own all there is crunch and then dissapointment. I think the problem is that I have tried to gee up the emptyness of the iceberg with strong flavours when what it needs is quiet companions that will not overpower its subtle green bitterness. And that is what I did today - kept it simple and came up with a lovely accompanyment to a tart made with puff pastry topped with brie, sweet bell peppers and sprinkled chives.

- Tear up a bowlful of iceberg leaves.
- Add in say, half a cucumber siced into chunks.
- Finally thinly slice three or four spring onions and add them to the bowl.
- Stir it all together and top with a dressing made from three or four tablespoonfuls of greek yoghurt, the juice of a lemon and some coursely ground black pepper.


I have noticed lately that whereas I make soups from flavours, salads for me are very much a visual thing first closely followed by texture. Hence I see my salads as colour combinations and rarely mix a large number of ingredients preferring to make several salads instead and can end up with a whole colour wheel on the table if I am not careful.

A Salad of Fried Potatoes with a Moroccan influence

I have never been to Morocco, and chances are I never will. To be honest it is quite far down my list of places I would like to see, and although I have eaten several dishes described as “tagine” I often doubt that they have been anywhere nearer to Morocco than I have. So the influence here is my attempt to recreate that feeling, that taste and smell I have in my head of what Morocco is all about. To me it involves a dark mixture of cinnamon and cumin, shot through with the vibrancy of mint and lemon.

It is also late Spring way down here under the world and as usual my soup making has fallen back a bit to be replaced by the salads my body craves at this time of year.

- Begin by boiling some potatoes. I like to leave the skins on and quarter them into biggish bite sized pieces.
- Cook for ten minutes or so until just cooked and a pointed knife will meet just a little resistance in the middle - you don’t want them to fall apart when fried later.
- Meantime take a mixture of salad leaves and put them in a bowl with a couple of thinly sliced spring onions.
- Thinly slice two or three mint leaves, add to the bowl with the juice of half a lemon. Mix it all together gently.
- Once the potatoes are cooked, put some olive oil into a frying pan and leave to heat up.
- Drain the potatoes into a colander and allow to sit and steam dry for a couple of minutes.
- Make a spice mixture up in a bowl ready to add to the potatoes. I used two teaspoons each of ground cinnamon and cumin seeds, along with a teaspoon of fennel seeds and perhaps half a teaspoon each of crushed chilli flakes and turmeric.
- Pop the potatoes into the hot frying and cook on a hottish heat, stirring occasionally until they start to brown.
- Take the pan off the heat and stir in the spice mixture - the spices just need warming through and the last thing you want to do is burn them.
- Add a little salt to the potatoes if they need it.
- Finally make up a dressing from a tablespoon and a half of mayonnaise from a jar with the juice of a lime squeezed in.

Now just put it all together - salad goes into a bowl to make a nest, then a few potatoes go in and a spoonful or two of dressing is dribbled over, with the rest of the bowl put on the table for people to help themselves. Be quick with this though because as soon as the potatoes hit the salad leaves they will begin to wilt and I think the joy of a salad such as this is the contrast between the hot ingredient and the cool crispyness of the lettuce.

Enjoy.

(Oh and if there are any left over potatoes mix them with some more mayonnaise to make a salad for lunch tomorrow, you'll be glad you did . . .)

A Cherry and Cheshire cheese salad

Sunday 7.42pm

The month before Christmas is cherry season here in Hawkes Bay. Usually quite short, this year there seem to be lots of cherries about and with temperatures reaching 30 degrees centigrade lately it is definitely salad weather.

This simple salad is a combination of sweet cherries, dry cheese and soft bitter leaves such as mizuna, rocket, watercress and radicchio. I of course used a bag of salad leaves from the market as we have eaten most of our radicchio.
Great just with some bread as in the picture it would also go with roast duck or even a spicy chicken stir fry. The cherries are just halved to remove the stones and the cheese chopped up into chunks.

The dressing is a honey mustard dressing made with 5 tablespoons of olive oil to two of white wine vinegar. Pop these into a screw topped jar and add a teaspoon of honey and one of a wholegrain mustard. Grind in some salt and black pepper, pop the lid on and shake well to mix. Pour on just as you serve it.

The bread by the way was made by Nicola and has pumpkin seeds and dried cranberries in it.

The best Rice Salad?

Saturday 1.52pm

Well actually I do not know because I have never made one before, but having been asked to provide one for a barbecue I had to have a go. Usually you would look up a few recipes, pick the nicest sounding ones and try them out first but it was the day of the barbecue by now and time was of the essence so I picked one of my favourite rice dishes ( a quick carrot and nut pilaff ) that I thought could be converted to a sort of Tabulleh inspired dish that would be good at room temperature.

The basic pilaff is made as follows ( for two people, I just quadrupled everything) :-

- Peel and chop an onion and a clove of garlic and set to cook gently in some olive oil
- Add in a carrot peeled and cut up into matchstick shaped pieces. You can grate it but I wanted pieces with a bit of crunch left in them after cooking.
- Add some spices, 1tsp cumin seeds, 2 tsp ground coriander seeds, 2 tsp black mustard seeds, and 4 cardammon pods.
- Let it cook through for a minute or so then add a cup of basmati rice.
- Give it another couple minutes, stirring the rice in, then add 2 cups of vegetable stock and a bayleaf.

Cook until the rice is just cooked.

If you add a cupfull of nuts, salt, pepper and some parsley, you get a lovely pilaff that is great served warm with leftover roast lamb and bread.

To make a salad I allowed the rice to cool down a bit then poured in some more olive oil, stirring until it loosened up a bit and glistened. Then added
- A cupfull of roughly chopped nuts - pistachios and almonds were nice
- And a big hand full of chopped coriander leaves (and stalks), parsley and chives
Now leave to sit so the flavours blend together and it comes to room temperature, adding more oil if neccessary if the rice gets too sticky.
And finally a squeeze of lemon juice just before serving cuts through the oil and adds a zingyness to the dish.

And the result? Well I don't know about anybody else but I liked it, and it certainly came out the way I hoped it would, spiced but not the usual curry powder and quite fresh tasting with all the herbs.