Weekend food with Darina Allen
I, of-course, love those but I’m now ready for some light crunchy winter vegetables with clean zingy dressings.
I know one normally associates spring and summer with salads, but cold weather vegetables make great salads too — chicory, fennel, celery, kale, romanesco, carrot, parsnip and the humble cabbage, both red and green. I must have six or eight cabbage salads in my repertoire, and no doubt I’ll add a few more — and I’m not even counting the ubiquitous coleslaw.
Celery is, of course, available year round, but like many vegetables it becomes sweeter if it gets a touch of frost.
I use the outside leaves for the stock pot and the inner leaves for soups, stews and risottos. The tender little yellow heart has a particularly subtle taste and are good in salads or as a delicate element on a plate of crudités with aioli.
The several types of radicchio, mostly named after towns near Venice, Treviso, Chioggia and Tardivo have a clean bitter sweet flavour, an acquired taste, but so cleansing after winter.
Chicory, another slightly bitter vegetable, is great in winter salads and partners well with apples, walnuts, rocket, blue cheese and pears.
On a recent trip to Copenhagen, a Danish cook and friend Camilla Plum made this delicious kale salad with a dressing of cream and lemon juice, reminiscent of what my grandmother used to make.
Kale, the most nutritious of all the brassicas, is now much more widely available and this is a particularly appetising way to serve it.
I’ll also include my ‘other’ daughter-in-law Penny’s recipe for cabbage salad.
We made it here at the school recently and the students couldn’t get enough of it — an inexpensive, nutritious and totally delicious salad for the weekend.
Celeriac is probably my favourite root.
It is delicate, yet very nutty, and has an elegant oily smoothness. Like all good vegetables, it is marvellous simply with a bit of olive oil.
Here it works with the lentils and nuts to create a hearty autumn main course.
Serve it warm, with a radish, cucumber and dill salad dressed with soured cream and olive oil. Or, allow it to cool down, then take it to work for lunch or on a picnic.
60g whole hazelnuts (skin on)
200g Puy lentils
700ml water
2 bay leaves
4 thyme sprigs
1 small celeriac (650g), peeled and cut into 1cm chips
4 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp hazelnut oil
3 tbsp good-quality red wine vinegar
4 tbsp chopped mint
Salt and black pepper
Preheat the oven to 140C/Gas Mark 1. Scatter the hazelnuts on a small baking sheet and roast in the oven for 15 minutes.
Let them cool down, then chop roughly. Combine the lentils, water, bay leaves and thyme in a small saucepan.
Bring to the boil, then simmer for 15–20 minutes, or until al dente. Drain in a sieve.
Meanwhile, in a separate saucepan, cook the celeriac in plenty of boiling salted water for 8–12 minutes, or until just tender. Drain.
In a large bowl mix the hot lentils (if they have cooled down they won’t soak up all the flavours) with the olive oil, 2 tablespoons of the hazelnut oil, the vinegar, some black pepper and plenty of salt.
Add the celeriac and stir well. Taste and adjust the seasoning.
To serve straight away, stir in half the mint and half the hazelnuts.
Pile onto a serving dish or in a bowl and drizzle the remaining hazelnut oil on top.
Garnish with the rest of the mint and hazelnuts.
To serve cold, wait for the lentils and celeriac to cool down before finally adjusting the seasoning and possibly adding some more vinegar, if you like. Add hazelnut oil, mint and nuts in the same way as when serving hot.
Bittersweet Salad
I don’t usually celebrate Valentine’s Day.
This is due to cowardly cynicism, combined with a firm belief that you cannot just create a momentous intimate occasion, especially when millions of other couples are trying to do exactly the same.
It just feels a bit claustrophobic.
But if you twisted my arm and forced me to, I guess I would choose this salad to celebrate the day, representing the more realistic flavours of love: bitter and sweet. The theme here is red. For this salad I’d go out of my way to find an exciting combination of red leaves and herbs.
I love the long, twisted red leaves of some varieties of radicchio di Treviso.
Red orach, purple basil, red amaranth and bull’s blood (red) chard are also stunning leaves.
Some tiny sprouting varieties, such as radish or purple basil, will also add character.
2 blood oranges (or plain oranges)
Blood orange juice as needed
20ml lemon juice
60ml maple syrup
½ tsp orange blossom water
½ small radicchio
1 small red endive (red chicory), leaves separated
1 tbsp olive oil
Handful of small red leaves
150g good-quality ricotta
20g pine nuts, toasted
100g pomegranate seeds (1 small pomegranate)
Coarse sea salt and black pepper
Start by making the orange syrup.
Take each of the blood oranges in turn and use a small sharp knife to slice off the top and base.
Now cut down the side of the orange, following its natural curve, to remove the skin and white pith.
Over a small bowl, cut in between the membranes to remove the individual segments into the bowl.
Squeeze all the juice from the membrane and skin into a small saucepan.
Make up the juice in the pan to 110ml with extra blood orange juice.
Add the lemon juice, maple syrup and a pinch of salt and bring to a light simmer.
Leave to reduce for 20–25 minutes, or until you are left with about 3 tablespoons of thick syrup.
Strain it through a fine sieve and allow to cool down, then stir in the orange blossom water.
Pull apart the radicchio leaves and tear them roughly into large pieces.
Put into a mixing bowl. Add the endive leaves, oil and some salt and pepper, and toss gently.
Divide the salad leaves between two serving plates.
Dot with the orange segments, small red leaves and spoonfuls of ricotta, building the salad up.
Drizzle with the orange syrup and finish with pine nuts and pomegranate seeds.
This salad will bring colour to your winter dinner table and liven up any meal. You can leave out the caramelised macadamias, if you like, or use roasted peanuts instead. Consider serving the slaw with Chard or roast chicken.
150g macadamia nuts
10g butter
2 tbsp sugar
½ tsp salt
½ tsp chilli flakes
7 inner leaves of Savoy cabbage (170g in total), finely shredded
½ red cabbage (270g), finely shredded
1 mango, cut into thin strips
1 papaya, cut into strips
1 fresh red chilli, deseeded and finely sliced
15g mint, leaves picked and roughly chopped
20g coriander, leaves picked and roughly chopped
100ml lime juice
1 lemongrass stalk, chopped into small pieces
3 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp toasted sesame oil
1 tsp soy sauce
¼ tsp chilli flakes
4 tbsp light olive oil or sunflower oil
To make the dressing place all the ingredients, except the oil, in a small saucepan and reduce over a high heat for 5–10 minutes, or until thick and syrupy.
Remove from the heat.
Once cooled down, strain the sauce into a bowl and add the oil.
Put aside for later.
To caramelise the macadamias, place them in a frying pan and dry-roast for a few minutes, stirring occasionally, until they are lightly coloured on all sides. Add the butter.
When it has melted add the sugar, salt and chilli flakes. Use a wooden spoon to stir constantly to coat the nuts in the sugar as it caramelises.
Watch carefully as it will only take 1–2 minutes and the sugar can burn quickly.
Turn out onto a sheet of greaseproof paper. Cool the nuts, then roughly chop them.
Place the shredded cabbages in a large mixing bowl with the rest of the salad ingredients, including the nuts.
Add the dressing and toss together. Taste and add more salt if you need to, then serve.
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