This recipe for sushi rice salad comes from my friend Jenny – a wonderful cook, effortless host, and one of those people who is always generous with her time, home, and recipes.
Jenny was the first person we met when we moved house more than 20 years ago. I don’t know how common it is, but in a street of maybe 40 houses, we’re on speaking terms with well over half our neighbours. Continue reading
Fattoush – that tasty Middle-Eastern salad of chopped vegetables and bread – is worth eating just for the opportunity to say it. “What’s for dinner, mum?” “Fattoush – we’re having fattoush tonight.”
I’ve made several versions of fattoush over the years, all of which call for the bread to be toasted or fried. The fattoush recipe in Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem cookbook is a bit different.
The bread is not cooked, for one thing. And instead of the usual olive oil and lemon juice, the salad is tossed with a yogurt-based dressing.
I love the way the dressing soaks into the bread, softening it and leaving it to the vegetables to deliver the crunch. Continue reading
I served this simple Croatian cucumber salad to accompany the prawns alla busara we had for dinner last night. The recipe seemed so simple, I hadn’t intended to post it.
But it was so crisp, cool and refreshing that I changed my mind. Continue reading
Tarator is a chilled yogurt and cucumber soup that is eaten throughout the Balkans. Apparently, it’s considered to be hangover cure, though I’ve yet to test that claim.
It’s very refreshing, and dead easy to make. I’d happily have a jug of tarator in the fridge for quick lunches on hot summer days.
Not that we’re overburdened with those in the UK… It’s probably best to make your tarator on the day and hope the thermometer hasn’t plunged by the time you were planning to serve it…;-) Continue reading
I’m not going to wax authoritative on the difference between cacik and tzatziki. One is Turkish, the other Greek – reason enough to stay out of it right there.
The similarities are more apparent: both are made with yogurt, cucumber and garlic, both are typically served as a dip or with grilled meat. Given that cacik is pronounced “ja-jik”, they even sound pretty similar.
Kachumber is a simple, delicious Indian chopped salad that takes just minutes to make. It provides a welcome freshness to any Indian meal, and works particularly well with kebabs and grilled meat.
Kachumber is so straightforward to make that a recipe isn’t really necessary. But for the record, here’s the way I make it. Continue reading
This simple tuna chickpea pitta sandwich is one of my lunchtime staples. I find the mix of textures particularly satisfying. It’s also low in fat and high in protein – the kind of food I’m looking for after recent indulgences.
Tzatziki is something I’ve made ever since I left home for university – and something I’ve never tired of eating. My tzatziki is pretty stripped back – just Greek yogurt, cucumber, garlic, olive oil and salt, with maybe a squeeze of lemon juice if it needs brightening up. I have no interest in adding dill, mint, parsley, vinegar, sour cream, mayonnaise… or anything else I’ve seen in other tzatziki recipes.
Now that our cucumber vines are bearing fruit, I expect we’ll be eating a lot more tzatziki in the weeks ahead… Continue reading
Expecting better things of Spain, I put them on day 22 of our World Cup menu plan. This recipe takes about three minutes to make –– about as long as it took Spain to crash out of the World Cup…;-)
Nova has never liked gazpacho much, which dragged the family score down considerably. Continue reading
When Lyra asked me what meal I would choose if I had to eat it every single day for the rest of my life, I picked Greek salad. As it is, definitely eat it at least once a week. Continue reading
Ten More Bites 