salad

Potato salad.

~ wellfedemily ~ 8 Comments

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It’s officially summer here in Vancouver, and all I wanna do is eat cold food outside on a hot day. I’m looking forward to a pretty much endless feast of watermelon and pink wine from now until October, and I will not be deterred.

Now is not the time for dainty salads or leafy greens.

Now is the time for cold potatoes and mayonnaise and hard boiled eggs and pickles and all those radishes that just exploded in the garden. Potato salad. You can make it ahead, stick it in a container, and tote it to the beach and it never wilts or weeps or sucks to eat. Potato salad is one of the greatest culinary inventions of our time, because it is simultaneously a salad and a vegetable side dish, and nobody dislikes it, and it’s got pickles in it.

Who doesn’t want a hot dog and some potato salad? Nobody, that’s who.

This is a pretty straightforward potato salad, the version my mom and everyone else’s mom and grandma makes. It makes a big bowl, enough to serve eight or so as a side dish, and it’s even better the second day. Make sure you make it while the potatoes are still a bit warm; there is a lot of sauce, and when the potatoes are warm they suck the dressing into them as they cool.

I make this with homemade mayonnaise because I’m too cheap to buy it in a jar considering how much we go through, so if you’re using store-bought mayo you may find you need to adjust the salt or acidity a bit to taste; keep in mind though that the dressing should be a bit saltier and a bit more acidic than you’d normally prefer as those flavours will tone down once the dressing is on the salad and it’s served cold. Please, please do not use Miracle Whip for this. I will know somehow that you’ve done it and feel really sad.

Potato Salad

  • 3 lb. white or red waxy potatoes (not Russets), cubed and boiled until tender and cooled slightly
  • 6 scallions, white and light green part only, sliced
  • 4 to 6 radishes, sliced
  • 2 stalks celery, finely chopped
  • 4 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
  • 1/2 cup finely chopped dill pickles
  • 1 cup mayonnaise
  • 1/2 cup sour cream
  • 2 tbsp. dill pickle brine
  • Zest and juice of one lemon
  • 2 tsp. Dijon mustard
  • 1/2 tsp. granulated sugar
  • 1 tsp. yellow curry powder
  • 1/2 tsp. smoked paprika
  • 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
  • 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
  • Salt, to taste
  • Fresh dill, chopped

In a large bowl, combine potatoes, scallions, radishes, celery, eggs, and pickle bits. Set aside.

In another bowl, combine mayonnaise, sour cream, pickle brine, lemon juice and zest, mustard, sugar, curry powder, paprika, pepper, cayenne pepper, and dill. Whisk together. Taste, adjusting salt and acidity as needed.

Pour the dressing over the potato mixture and toss to coat. I use my hands to gently mix the dressing into the potatoes – you should too. Clean hands are the best kitchen tool there is.

Top with a sprinkle of additional dill, and some more radishes and green onion, if desired. Chill, and serve cold.

Something to Read: The Sriracha Cookbook

~ wellfedemily ~ 4 Comments

30days

We’ve been a sriracha household ever since Nick first tasted sriracha one fateful night at the 24-hour pho place that used to be at Broadway and Cambie. After maple syrup, it may be my favourite condiment; in fact, when we make chicken and waffles, we use them both together. (This pretty accurately describes how we feel.)

While I don’t allow a liberal dousing of the stuff on my home-cooked dinners, we’ll happily splatter it all over any and all take-out, and it gets well used as an ingredient. It’s a marinade, a salad dressing, a replacement for ketchup, and essential to soups and sandwich fillings. It’s the secret and most important ingredient in our homemade Caesars (for my American friends, a Caesar is like a Bloody Mary but 100 times better because of Clamato, which is tomato juice with clam nectar. Come over sometime. I’ll show you.).

We like our rooster sauce.

We could have lived happily ever after, just pouring our favourite hot sauce on everything. When I discovered you could buy two giant bottles of it at Costco for $6, things started to really get spicy. Then, one day, our beloved friends Dan and Dennis were in Puerto Vallarta and couldn’t find the sriracha they needed (most of our friends are similarly sriracha-dependent). It was then that they happened upon Shark Sauce, the Mexican version of sriracha (pictured below), which turned out to be kind of amazing, and then they bought some for us too. Dan and Dennis improve our lives in many ways, but Shark Sauce has been perhaps the greatest of their gifts to us.

sriracha

Mexican sriracha is everything that regular American sriracha is, but with more garlic flavour. So, it takes one thing we love and can’t stop eating (sriracha) and improves upon it with the other thing we love and can’t stop eating (garlic) to make a thing that is so wonderful we have to ration it because we’re never sure when we’re going to get more of it. You can only get it in Mexico. We are not likely to get to Mexico anytime soon. Dan and Dennis, recently returned from Mexico, confirmed via Facebook that they have Shark Sauce for us and I think I saw a tear of gratitude form in Nick’s left eye.

If you go to Mexico, get Shark Sauce. If someone you know is going to Mexico, get them to get you Shark Sauce. You can get it in Mexican Walmarts, apparently. I’m sure there are other places.

If you love sriracha like we love sriracha and put it on and in all the things, get The Sriracha Cookbook. Endorsed by David Chang (of Momofuku fame), The Sriracha Cookbook will help you incorporate more sriracha into your diet with recipes for every meal. (Maybe you already have sriracha with/on every meal. This will help you use sriracha in fancier, possibly more socially acceptable ways.) It’s not a long book, but the recipes are solid and the photos are nice; it would be a good gift for a bridal shower or a Secret Santa exchange.

I figure a cookbook is worthwhile when it contains at least three recipes that produce reliable results and that I’d make again and again. I’ve made at least three recipes from the book, and have made them multiple times, and people have not gagged when served the food I made from the book so I figure it’s a hit. It’s a fun book.

My favourite recipe from The Sriracha Cookbook is the tropical fruit salad. I think papayas taste like decaying bodies, and Nick thinks he’s allergic to pineapple, and we don’t eat bananas for complicated banana-hating reasons, so I use watermelon and a couple of avocados and it works very well. I also add more soy sauce because 1/4 teaspoon is much too conservative for my liking; adjust the seasonings to your taste. This dish is great for brunch, or as a side-dish for a summer meal; it also keeps well in the fridge (up to three days) so it’s kind of nice to make ahead for weekday lunches.

Tropical Fruit Salad with Sriracha-Sesame Vinaigrette

(Serves 8.)

  • 1/4 cup toasted sesame oil
  • 1/4 cup seasoned rice vinegar
  • 1/2 cup honey
  • 2 tbsp. sriracha
  • 2 tbsp. toasted white sesame seeds
  • 1/4 tsp. soy sauce
  • 1 medium pineapple, peeled, cored and cubed
  • 2 mangoes, peeled, cored and cubed
  • 1 papaya, peeled and cubed
  • 2 kiwi fruits, peeled, halved lengthwise, and sliced
  • 1 pint strawberries, hulled and quartered
  • 1/2 cup sweetened flaked coconut, for garnish
  • Fresh mint, cut into ribbons, for garnish

In a medium bowl, combine sesame oil, rice vinegar, honey, sriracha, sesame seeds, and soy sauce. Whisk everything together. Taste it. Does it need more of anything? Adjust seasonings to taste.

Put the fruit into a large mixing bowl. Pour the dressing over top, and toss gently, using your (clean) hands.

Serve with a garnish of flaked coconut and mint chiffonade.

And seriously. Get someone to get you Shark Sauce. It will change your life. I’m probably not exaggerating.

Corn and asparagus salad

~ wellfedemily ~ 2 Comments

As of about 1:30 p.m. last Friday, it is now summer on the west coast and I am wearing a sundress and remembering my thighs now that they are not prevented by denim or Lycra from rubbing together.

Finally, things I’ve been waiting a year for are in season again, and the sun is warm into the evening so we can garden after work or enjoy a fizzy drink or two and a tomato salad on a patio somewhere and be social. I bought this season’s first zucchini on Sunday. I picked strawberries in the sunshine on Saturday. On Friday I ate corn in a park beside a marina.

My Dad trimmed his garlic plants this weekend and sent me home with a wealth of stinky, curly green stalks with which to make pesto and salads until the garlic oil ekes from our pores and our coworkers beg us to eat anything else. And corn has begun to appear in the markets, just as the last of the frozen stuff has hardened into an iceberg that smells like freezer and deserves to be thrown out.

So for this Meatless Monday, dinner came together in a fifteen-minute frenzy of blanching, chopping, and tossing, and it was cool and bright-tasting, with lemon and tomatoes, and basil, and piquillo peppers from a jar in the fridge and those pungent, fabulous garlic scapes.

There would have been a handful of Parmesan cheese thrown in at the end but I was in such a rush to eat that I forgot. No matter. It’s just fine sprinkled on after, and it’s just fine without if you want to keep things vegan. It would also be wonderful with grilled scallops or spot prawns, or maybe halibut, but you can do that some other night.

Corn and asparagus salad

(Serves four as a main dish, six as a side.)

  • 1 lb. asparagus, trimmed, cut into bite-size pieces
  • 2 large cobs corn (about 1 1/2 cups)
  • 2 cups diced fresh tomatoes
  • 2 diced piquillo peppers (or roasted red bell peppers)
  • 1 large shallot, minced
  • 1/2 cup garlic scapes or scallions, finely chopped
  • 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
  • 1 lemon, zest and juice
  • 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 tbsp. minced fresh basil
  • 1 tsp. red pepper flakes
  • 1 tsp. Kosher salt
  • 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

Blanch asparagus in a large pot of boiling water. Cool in an ice water bath until cold.

Scrape corn from cobs into a large bowl. Add tomatoes, peppers, shallot, garlic scapes, Parmesan cheese, and lemon zest. Add asparagus.

Whisk lemon juice, olive oil, basil, pepper flakes, salt, and pepper together. Taste, adjusting balance as needed. Pour over salad. Toss to coat.

Serve immediately.

And then I fell into the couch and ate watermelon salad until none remained.

~ wellfedemily ~ 13 Comments

Sometimes I have no idea where the time goes. My nightstand is still littered with evidence of Paris and the suitcase which still features the Air Canada tags from my trip in May is still on the floor. Not long after I got back and sort of unpacked we stuffed the suitcase with summer clothes and light formal wear and drove six hours to Osoyoos, a small town in the Okanagan – wine- and rattlesnake-country, for those unfamiliar with the region.

Where Vancouver was rainy and bleak, Osoyoos was hot and sunny, and the dry desert air was a rare treat for my hair, which cannot be worn down most of the time as disco is dead and there is no place for big blonde disco hair in my day-to-day life. I ate ice cream and we got suntans on the beach and beside the pool at the resort where we were staying for Nick’s youngest sister’s wedding. For some reason, theirs was the only grey day while we were up there.

We’ve been back two weeks and the suitcase hasn’t moved from its spot on the bedroom floor, and I’m pretending that it’s still there because the cat loves it. She has claimed it as her own personal chaise, and she stretches her furry little body diagonally across it, chewing the zipper pull on one corner and batting at the pull on the other end with her back paws.

In the time between trips and in the time since we’ve been back, there were the playoffs, and hockey games every two days for weeks and weeks. Nick aged thirty years during the Vancouver-Boston series, and his liver grew three sizes. He raged quietly as Vancouver gave up so many goals, and raged outwardly as we watched our city implode in the aftermath of Game 7. Our reaction to the end of it all has been relief.

There were other things. Nick’s sister and brother-in-law and their little girl were in town, so we attended events in their honour and then fed them a feast, and the youngest sister celebrated her wedding a second time at home, with a larger guest list, and I made the food, anticipating 80 guests. The result is that I am tempted to call our whole apartment a loss and walk away; there is icing on the living room rug and bits of dried blini batter stuck to the cat and weird smells coming from behind the freezer where I dropped and then couldn’t find several dozen blueberries and at least four pieces of pineapple.

In all of this, I have been moving slower and slower as it becomes more and more apparent that this is not a beer belly slung over the top of my jeans. I have been measuring the transition of my belly button from innie to outie, and it looks like it should complete its journey within the week.

My pants don’t fit and I want to violently devour every watermelon I see. I almost cried because a store was out of cantaloupe, and threw a fit in a different store because they had no canned orange segments. Nick said something about hormones, so I punched him. Extremely personal and very unsolicited questions, observations, and advice are now arriving in earnest. And while they have never lacked the appreciation they deserve, my boobs and what I do or do not intend to do with them are suddenly everyone’s business. The correct answer to such probing questions does not seem to be “I’m planning on only feeding the little raptor Diet Coke so it doesn’t get fat.”

It should not have come as a surprise how many people do not have a sense of humour about babies.

It will be a boy baby, by the way. Who, at the moment, compels me toward melon and leaves me ravenous for cans of fruit cocktail, who seems to want an endless supply of Hawkins Cheezies, pulled pork sandwiches, avocados, icy Cherry Coke, and cold pieces of summer fruit.

To keep things interesting, I’ve devised the following salad, which makes it possible to incorporate melon into dinnertime. It’s Meatless Monday friendly, and you can eat it on a bed of greens if you feel like it. I prefer watermelon for this.

Savoury fruit salad

(Serves four as a side dish)

Dressing:

  • 2 tbsp. light soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp. rice vinegar
  • 2 tsp. sesame oil
  • 2 tsp. sriracha
  • 2 tsp. honey
  • Juice of 1/2 lime

Salad:

  • 2 cups diced watermelon
  • 1 long English cucumber, diced
  • 1 avocado, diced
  • 1 mango, diced
  • 2 scallions, finely chopped
  • 2 tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro
  • Toasted sesame seeds, for garnish

In a small bowl, whisk together soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, sriracha, honey, and lime juice. Taste, adjust seasonings as needed, and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine watermelon, cucumber, avocado, mango, scallions, and cilantro. Toss with dressing, and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Serve cold.

Garlic scapes and chickpeas and tomatoes. Hooray!

~ wellfedemily ~ 9 Comments

Do you know about garlic scapes*? Everyone at work does now, because I snuck out and bought some and brought them back and the stench they created had people on the other side of the place, a wall and forty square feet away, come in asking if it was me who smelled like feet or stale kimchi or dying. It was, and it usually is because there’s a little produce market on campus where I buy cool things that sometimes turn out to, um, pong, but to be fair? Garlic scapes have a very limited season and I can’t be faulted for celebrating their arrival.

Weird how things that smell bad are always my fault, but I refuse to accept responsibility. Someone could use some therapy.

I hope I didn’t scare you off about the smell. Garlic scapes don’t stink. They have a real garlicky smell, and something else – chlorophyll or something – something green. Anything garlic or onion that you leave on the floor of your over-heating office for four hours is bound to fuss about it, you know? But they’re really quite lovely. A quick blanch or sauté is all they really need. There’s a place we go to on Main Street where you can order skewers of them wrapped in bacon and then grilled.

Last night for company they found their way into a salad. Apparently we’re into salads these days, though it’s not hot and currently outside I can see at least three shades of grey not counting the apartment buildings and alley out my window. And salad is what you have when you need a side dish for roast chicken and potatoes. Since Mark, married to Nick’s sister Jess, lives gluten-free, salad was doubly perfect.

I’m sure there will be much more garlic scapery yet – I bought four bunches in a burst of enthusiasm, and they’re living in a vase of water on my counter awaiting their garlicky destiny. But for now – a recipe for salad. Not boring salad. Garlic salad. I promise, you’ll totally love this.

Chickpea, tomato, and garlic scape salad

  • 1 19 oz. can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
  • 2 to 3 cups cherry tomatoes, rinsed (sliced if they’re larger, whole if they’re bite-size and fantastic)
  • 1 lemon, zest and juice
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 1 cup chopped garlic scapes
  • 1 tsp. red pepper flakes
  • 1 tbsp. chopped basil
  • Salt and pepper, to taste

In a bowl, combine chickpeas, tomatoes, and lemon zest and juice.

In a pan over medium-high heat, heat olive oil until shimmering. Add garlic scapes and red pepper flakes, and sauté until scapes turn bright green – about a minute. Pour the whole thing, oil included, over the other ingredients, tossing to coat. Chill for an hour.

Before serving, add basil, salt, and pepper. Adjust seasonings as needed.

It’s so pretty, and very bright-tasting. The oil picks up the garlicky taste of the garlic scapes, and as it chills with the lemon zest it develops a delightfully clean taste. This is a great picnic salad, and if there are leftovers you don’t have to worry about lettuce wilting or sucking the next day.

Also? PS? LOOK AT MY BABY RADISHES!

That is all. Happy Canada Day!

*These may be garlic chives. I have been operating under some confusion forever. Oh well? Garlic scapes should work the same.

Savoury strawberry salad: More awesome than alliteration!

~ wellfedemily ~ 3 Comments

I could not get out of bed fast enough on Saturday – it was strawberry day! And maybe I was a little too excited, because it was only the first day of the u-pick season, and there were frustrating turns of events. It all worked out in the end but the berry farm we meant to go to, Krause Berry Farms? Apparently that’s where everyone goes because they have pie and there were more cars parked there than I’d seen in a long time and three people told us we probably wouldn’t get any berries because all the ripe ones were gone. But just across the street, there was a berry farm and almost no cars, and lots and lots of berries. You win, other berry farm.

Grace, Corinne, and I set out among the rows to pluck berries, only mildly irritated that we’d have been wiser to wait a week, and collected as many berries as we could.

I ended up buying some, because we got whole buckets but decided to quit there because the day had not met our expectations of magic and grandeur, which actually happens less than you’d think. It’s possible that we’re easily pleased.

And then we went home, because some of us had jams and ice creams to make.

But before that, I desperately wanted a salad. Caprese-inspired, I wanted a heap of strawberries and burrata and basil and pepper and oil, and a splash of balsamic vinegar. Use burrata cheese if you can find it, or if you’ve got the time and inclination to make it. If not, use the freshest softest mozzarella you can find. This is another case where I don’t have a recipe for you, but a list of ingredients, and you can play with it until it’s to your liking, or until you have enough to serve everyone who’s eating with you.

Strawberry salad

  • Fresh, local strawberries (room temperature)
  • Burrata or fresh mozzarella
  • Basil, cut into thin strips (chiffonade)
  • Fresh ground black pepper
  • Extra-virgin olive oil
  • Balsamic vinegar (a splash)
  • Salt, if needed, and to taste

Chop everything choppable. Assemble on a plate. Sprinkle with pepper, and drizzle oil and vinegar to taste. Serve.

I love using fruit in savoury applications, because it’s not as desserty as you’d think. Strawberries can substitute nicely for sweet summer tomatoes, especially since they mimic the meaty texture of tomatoes, and because they’re as tart as they are sweet and play so nicely with the creamy cheese and citrusy basil. Try this dish with peaches, or nectarines, or plums later in the season. I promise, it will not be weird, and you will love it forever. I wouldn’t raise and then dash your expectations of magic and grandeur on purpose.

Cucumber salad.

~ wellfedemily ~ 9 Comments

I always worry that one day you’re going to realize that we drink an almost unacceptable amount of wine, more than we need to, and that your response is not going to be “I should come over!” See above for exhibit A, and the equivalent of four bottles for four people. Summer is for laughter and sharing.

To be fair, there was enough food for eight people, and once I got going on a simple meal of fried chicken and cucumber salad, the menu somehow spiralled until it included candied sweet potato and apples, whole-wheat baking powder biscuits, peas in butter with scallions, and macaroni and cheese with chipotles for Jaz, Tracy’s boyfriend, who is a vegetarian. Somehow, it all got eaten. The night ended earlier than usual because we all needed to head to our respective beds to sleep it all off.

This is the point at which I want you to think you’re invited over, because you are. Anytime, so long as you’re not planning an intervention. Wear elastic-waist pants. If you think of it, try to call the night before.

We almost never issue invitations, because there are always friends passing through, either to play games or watch games on TV, or to share wine and gossip, or to catch up because somehow we all got very busy and the constant togetherness sort of died off. The latter has been the case with Tracy, who runs a fantastic arts and lit magazine and works four-thousand jobs and still finds time to win awards and go to Toronto and get into grad school to study publishing, and I have got to stop whining about being tired from my one job and my no other things. Tracy has been away and returned, and the night before she came over, she sent me a message to indicate that it’s been too long/forever, and let’s eat.

So we did.

A lot.

And I didn’t realize it, but I make a lot of cucumber salad come summer. It goes with everything – fried chicken and biscuits, with spicy Indian food, with delicate pieces of fish or with big hunks of grilled meat. It’s the easiest thing in the world, and I have been eating it at summer meals since I was approximately an infant. Here’s my spin on it, which you can easily adapt to your own summer table.

Cucumber salad

  • 1 long English cucumber, sliced into very thin rounds
  • 1 small onion, sliced paper-thin
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 1/2 cup Greek-style yogurt
  • 1/2 cup chopped herbs (your choice, and depending completely on what you want to serve – I like parsley, mint, dill, or cilantro)
  • 1 lime, zest and juice
  • Pepper, to taste

Place cucumber and onion slices in a large bowl, and sprinkle with salt. Toss to coat. Cover, and place in the refrigerator for two hours.

Drain liquid from veggies, and toss with yogurt, lime juice and zest, and pepper.

Serve immediately, garnished with more chopped herbs. I also like a sprinkle of paprika, sometimes, or a little bit of ground coriander.

See? So easy. So cooling, and so practical. So totally enough for way more than four people.

We’ll be back to much smaller dinners tomorrow, and a weeknight’s ration of wine. Both dinner and wine will be more than enough for more of us if you think you’ll feel like stopping by.