salad Archives - Page 9 of 12 - Time for a coffee

April 24, 2013

A simple rice salad

The other day I cooked some rice to accompany the pork dish I was cooking and wouldn’t you know it I had cooked way too much rice! Or maybe people weren’t as hungry that day as they have been other days.

So what to do with the left over cooked rice? Well make a rice salad of course.

I looked through the fridge and found some cucumber and a tomato, these I diced and added to the salad along with a good dollop of mayonnaise. I had missed the leftover sweetcorn otherwise I would have added that too.

Stir, chill and eat later.

Another rice salad recipe.

March 11, 2013

Mozzarella and Tomato Salad

This is a very different kind of dish than just a salad and makes for a nice refreshing, quite light, starter. Works well when having pasta or pizza, but I often have it as a salad amongst a range of other salads.

It’s also really easy to make. Take a beef tomato, and slice into thin slices. Doing this makes you realise how important a really good sharp knife is in the kitchen. You can of course use other tomatoes, I quite like using small ones.

Having cut your tomato, now get some mozzarella. I do prefer buffalo milk mozzarella, but this is about twice the price of cow milk mozzarella. Slice the mozzarella into slices and place with the tomato on a plate. Drizzle with olive oil, white wine vinegar and then add some freshly ground black pepper.

January 12, 2013

Seafood Platter

For New Year’s Eve we decided to have a fish and seafood platter. It was an opportunity to cook and eat some great food. However one problem, as you may recall New Year’s Eve is not only part of Christmas, it’s also a Monday. As a result it was virtually impossible to find any fresh fish or seafood. Generally the fishing fleets don’t go out at weekends and I suspect that they certainly wouldn’t go out over a weekend during the festive season. As a result we went with frozen seafood, not my first choice, but with what we wanted it was better than nothing.

We got some frozen king prawns, scallops and squid from Sainsbury’s as part of their Taste the Difference range. One of the key things to do when using frozen seafood is to defrost and defrost safely. If you cook frozen seafood from frozen, generally what happens is that you overcook it and it becomes very rubbery. You need to take care when defrosting to avoid food poisoning. The best way to defost is in the fridge, but this takes time. If you do defrost at room temperature, make sure you move the seafood to the fridge once it has defrosted.

The prawns I cooked on my griddle, whilst the scallops were cooked very quickly on a hot flat frying pan, as were the squid rings.

The scallops were perfect and I was really pleased with how I cooked them. They were browned on each side, but were only just done on the inside. As a result they were melt in the mouth tender, and full of flavour. The prawns were very good, and served with some lemon were delicious. I was less impressed with the squid rings. In the past when I have cooked squid, I have bought frozen whole squid from Tesco and cut it into pieces of squid. I much prefer using this way of preparing squid, usually scoring one side to ensure even cooking and browing of the edges. The squid from Sainsbury’s comes ready sliced into rings. It cooked fine, but it lacked the depth of flavour I have had in the past with squid from Tesco. Why didn’t I get my squid from Tesco, well they’ve seemed to have stopped selling it.

Alongside this plate of seafood I also grilled some giant tiger prawns in their shells. These were placed under a really hot grill, after they were fully defrosted and brushed with some olive oil. The main reason for these prawns is twofold, one is the visual impact, secondly was flavour. They were delicious, though of course were quite messy to peel.

We also had some dressed crab, these were small crab shells filled with a crab pate and white crab meat. They looked really nice, but lacked the depth of flavour I would liked to have. This was served with some fresh crusty bread.

 Another successful dish was some clams. I got a pack of frozen Big and Juicy clams from the Big Prawn Company which I mananged to buy at Waitrose.

Again the key was to ensue they were properly defrosted before cooking, well they’re cooked already, all they really needed was heating up. I did this in a pan with some freshly chopped garlic and parsley. I thought they were delicious and very good value at £3.29. I think they would also work with linguine if wanted pasta and seafood.

We also cooked some salmon, this was roasted in the oven with a little olive oil.

Overall this was a delicious meal, we served it with some fresh salad and I also made a paella.

February 19, 2012

Very nice indeed…

I have a kind of love hate relationship with Café Rouge. I really like the concept behind Café Rouge and like the menu, but then I am let down either by poor service or over seasoning.

However on my latest visit with the family, we had excellent service, great food and it was all, very nice indeed…

It was, how it should be, how I expect it to be, and what I want when I go out and pay for lunch.

My son, avoiding the children’s menu, he went for the Tartine Marocaine, an open sandwich of sautéed spicy Merguez sausages & caramelised onions with houmous and crisp chicory on grilled sourdough bread served with a minted crème fraîche.

I am a great fan of Merguez sausages and these, though slightly overdone for me, were very nice, and my son really enjoyed the dish. I was quite surprised how much he enjoyed the onions, the crisp chicory (which is quite bitter) and the salad. He wasn’t that impressed with the minted crème fraîche, but once he worked out that it helped cool the spiciness of the Merguez sausage he understood how it fitted into the dish. I have had this dish myself before and enjoyed it back then.

My wife went with the Salade de Chèvre, grilled goat’s cheese croutons on a bed of marinated red peppers, black olives and herb salad with a light vinaigrette.

She let me try the salad and I liked the freshness of the salad leaves with the marinated red peppers and black olives. The goat’s cheese had a subtle flavour, but was nice.

I went with the Tartine au Maquereau, an open sandwich of pan-fried mackerel fillets, baby plum tomatoes, horseradish mayonnaise and rocket on grilled sourdough bread.

I really enjoyed this dish, the mackerel was cooked really well and the tomatoes, rocket and horseradish mayonnaise complemented the fish. The dish was full of flavour and was delicious.

My two younger ones had meals from the children’s menu, they enjoyed their food, but the fries came with salt on them… personally I think they should come without salt, especially on the children’s dishes.

So what about the service? Despite the fact it was a busy Sunday, we got a table as soon as we walked in, and the waitress was friendly and efficient. The food came within a reasonable time frame and we weren’t rushed or anything. As a result it was a very relaxing and enjoyable meal out.

Very nice indeed…

August 21, 2011

Spicy Salad

I know that some people get bored with plain lettuce, but it doesn’t take much to take that plain lettuce and jazz it up!

For this salad, I took some mixed leaves and added slices of tomato and cucumber. I do like to use “proper” tomatoes, you know the ones that actually taste of tomato.

To jazz it up, I added some mini chilli salami (no not pepparami, but a posh version) and some Spanish manzanilla and couchillo olives.

I didn’t add a dressing, as there is plenty of flavour in the olives, the oil from the olives and the spicy salami. However if you are that way inclined I would make a simple dressing of good olive oil and some white wine vinegar.

August 16, 2011

Mozzarella, Tomato & Pesto Salad with Rocket & Pine Nuts

Fancying a salad for lunch I found this Mozzarella, Tomato & Pesto Salad with Rocket & Pine Nuts in Sainsbury’s.

It was quite nice. The pesto wasn’t overpowering, there was enough to cover the pasta and there were ample pine nuts too. The pasta was the right texture, the sunblush tomatoes were nice and the mozzarella was fine.

Overall it was a nice packaged salad and certainly much nicer than a sandwich.

July 26, 2011

Salad Bar

On a recent visit to Pizza Hut I was once more disappointed with the salad bar. Credit to Pizza Hut in that they are currently giving away unlimited salad if you order a main course, so maybe I am been slightly disingenuous as the salads are free.

Yes there was lettuce, but it was iceberg lettuce. Yes there was cucumber, but it was thick chunks rather than slices. No tomatoes though… The coleslaw was okay, however the potato salad lacked texture and bite.

I think part of my disappointment is the result of a memory from the early 1990s when I visited a branch of the Deep Pan Pizza company and on their salad bar they had chicken wings, fresh pineapple slices and a fantastic range of salads.

Of course as Deep Pan Pizza closed in 1998 there is no chance of visiting them again!

July 4, 2011

Simple Pesto Pasta Salad

I do quite like pasta based salads which are basically can be best described as cold pasta! Though there is a little more work required than just letting cooked pasta going cold…

For this salad I cooked some fusilli pasta twists and after they had cooked, I immersed them in cold water. Iced cold water would be better, but I had no ice, so just plain cold water would do. This is for two reasons, firstly to make the pasta cold, ready for the salad, secondly to stop the cooking process. If you just cooked the pasta an let it go cold, it would go all soggy as it continued to cook after you drained it. So even if you intend to eat your pasta salad later, still plunge it into cold water to stop the cooking process. Just as an aside this is often how restaurants “cook” pasta. They cook the pasta until just about done, before plunging the pasta into ice cold water. They can then finish the cooking of the pasta when needed and it will only take a minute to finish the pasta before adding a sauce.

So with the cooked pasta I added a couple of spoonfuls of basil pesto and some chicken.

Mixed and served.

You could add some fresh basil leaves to up the basil flavour. Another option would be to add some cooked spinach.

May 14, 2011

A Simple Salad

I made myself a simple salad, it consisted of some coleslaw. Now in the past I have made my own coleslaw and much prefer it. However this time it was from the shop!

I used some lettuce leaves with green beans, which I dressed with some olive oil and white wine vinegar. To finish off some Jersey Royal new potatoes with a spoonful of mayonnaise.

Simple and delicious.

April 21, 2011

So you went again…

As my last experience wasn’t too bad, when I needed to get a meal recently I did try Café Rouge one more time.

After my last meal, back then I said:

So despite my reservations I in the end had a good meal, good service and may go again.

One of my main issue (and it would appear I am not alone in this) with Café Rouge is not necessarily with the food, but with the service.

I have had issues with the food so still not entirely confident with the chain.

However there is something I really like about the concept behind Café Rouge, the idea of a French bistro is very appealing and the menu always sounds nice.

So having had a reasonably positive experience last time I felt quite positive about this visit. I did go safe though and I went with the steak I had last time, the Bavette. I did as the menu recommended ordered the steak rare. The Bavette is a flank steak so if cooked medium or well done it will be a tougher than say a sirloin cooked to medium.

So what of the result?

Well it was very nice and the fries were good too. I don’t think it was as good as before, but was still tasty and full of flavour.

Alongside I had a side salad, that was much more than just lettuce. In there was red onion, olives and green beans.

To wash it down, I had a glass of Cotes du Rhone, full bodied and full of fruity flavours.

So what of the service?

Well I think I was lucky in that I went in quite late and the place was quite empty, only three tables with diners. They were also at the end of their meals, whereas mine had just begun. So the waiting staff were basically waiting on me!

Overall, not a too bad an experience, good food and good service; in other words what it should be every time I go to Café Rouge and should be the rule not the exception.