Tag: Salad

Carrot Leek & Apple Salad

I was sorting out my recipe box notes and cuttings when I came across this recipe from one of my cousins in Białystok for a salad made from carrots, leeks and apples.

I had not noted down whether the leeks were just sliced or if they were blanched as well so I tried both ways and both salads were super.

Ingredients

  • 2-3 carrots
  • 1 leek
  • 1- 2 eating apples – Braeburns are good
  • Juice of a lemon
  • 2-3 tablespoons of Mayonnaise
  • Salt & pepper to taste

Method – 1

  • Grate the carrots using a coarse grater.
  • Thinly slice the leeks and cut the rings into halve or quarters.
  • Core the apple and chop into small chunks.
  • Pore the lemon juice over the salad.
  • Add the mayonnaise and mix well.
  • Salt and pepper to taste.

 

Method – 2

  • As above except for the leeks.
  • Put the cut leeks into hot water and simmer for a few minutes.
  • Allow the leeks to cool.
  • Drain the leeks and pat dry with kitchen roll or a clean tea towel.
  • Mix all the ingredients together.

Beetroots & Apples

This is a delicious way of serving beetroot warm with a roast dinner.

Ingredients

  • 500g boiled or roast beetroots
  • 2-3 cooking apples
  • 60g of butter
  • Juice and grated rind of a lemon
  • 2-3 tablespoons of creamed horseradish sauce
  • 125ml of soured cream
  • Salt & pepper to taste

Method

  • Grate the beetroots using a medium grater.
  • Peel and core the apples and grate using a medium grater.
  • Mix the beetroot and apple together.
  • Mix in the lemon rind and juice.

  • Melt the butter in a large shallow frying pan.
  • Gently cook the mixture in the butter stirring often.
  • Cook for around 5-10 minutes.
  • Take of the heat.
  • Add the horseradish sauce and the soured cream.
  • Mix well together.
  • Season to taste and serve immediately.

Serve in Royal Doulton – Carnation – 1982 – 1998.

Note

Should you have any left you can serve it cold with cold meats.

Fruity Cabbage Salad

Here is a salad made with one of Poland’s favourite vegetables – cabbage.

It is a more fruity variation of a cabbage & orange salad I posted over three years ago!

Ingredients

  • A small white cabbage or sweetheart cabbage
  • 2 oranges
  • 3 eating apples – red skinned for colour contrast.
  • 1 tin of  pineapples
  • 80g raisins or sultanas
  • A pinch of salt & pepper to taste
  • *
  • Dressing – Mayonnaise & pineapple juice

Method

  • Peel the oranges removing all the pith.
  • Cut them into slices, separate the segments and then chop these into small pieces.
  • Finely shred and chop the cabbage

 

 

 

  • Core the apples and chop them into small pieces.
  • Drain the pineapples from the juice.
  • Chop the pineapples into small pieces.
  • Mix the cabbage and fruits together.
  • Mix mayonnaise and some pineapple juice together to make a thin dressing.
  • Add the dressing and mix everything well together.
  • You can add salt and pepper here if desired.

Served here in my mother’s vintage glass bowl.

I tend to make this salad a while before it is needed as with the magic of osmosis – raisins become plumped up with the juice from the oranges and pineapple. The dressing becomes sweet from the sugars in the raisins.

This salad goes well with roast dinners, cold smoked meats and Polish style sausages.

Cabbage & Gherkin Salad

I had half a sweetheart cabbage left after a meal and not much else in the fridge.

I put together the ingredients I had and got a delicious new salad.

Use red onions if you can as these give a good colour contrast.

Ingredients

  • ½ a sweetheart cabbage
  • 4-5 medium sized gherkins
  • 2 small red onions
  • 3 tablespoons of gherkins liquid from the jar
  • 2-3 tablespoons of full-fat mayonnaise
  • Salt & pepper

Method

  • Cut the cabbage into fine shreds.
  • Cut the gherkins into round slices.
  • Chop the onions into small pieces.
  • Mix the chopped ingredients with the gherkin liquid and the mayonnaise.
  • Season with salt and pepper.

 

 

Carrot, Leek & Apple Salad

As well as any cookery books and magazines, I have notes and cuttings  from various sources.  Ever so often I look through these for inspiration and think “Yes, I must try that!”.

Here is a recipe for a salad that I jotted down when visiting one of my cousins in Białystok.

Ingredients

  • 2 large carrots – coarse grated
  • 2 leeks cut into fine slices
  • 2 eating apples – cored and rough chopped
  • Juice of half a lemon
  • 2 -3 tablespoons of full fat mayonnaise
  • Chopped chives to serve

    Method

  • Mix everything together apart from the chives.
  • Put into a serving dish
  • Sprinkle the chives on top and serve.

Served in Royal Doulton – Carnation – 1982 – 1998

Pepper & Apple Salad

Here is a refreshing salad with a honey and yoghurt dressing for a sunny day.

Ingredients

  • 1 red pepper
  • 1 yellow or orange pepper
  • 2 onions
  • 2 eating apples such as Braeburn
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • *
  • 2 tablespoons of runny honey
  • 3 tablespoons of Greek style yoghurt
  • *
  • Flat-leaved parsley to garnish

Method

  • Cut the peppers and remove the stalk and seeds.
  • Cut the peppers into very thin strips.
  • Slice the onions finely.
  • Put the lemon juice into a bowl.
  • Core the apples and cut into small chunks.
  • Place the apples into the lemon juice.
  • Mix the peppers, onions and apples together.
  • Put the salad into a serving dish.
  • *
  • Mix the honey and yoghurt together.
  • Put this mixture on top of the salad.
  • Garnish with chopped flat-leaved parsley.

Waldorf Salad

I have been watching my box set of Fawlty Towers DVDs and have found they are still amusing after more than 40 years.

When an American guest asks for a  Waldorf salad and  Basil Fawlty replies  “I think we’re just out of  waldorfs” – I thought  – I have never actually had that – must look it up and make it!

Waldorf salad was created by Oscar Tschirky,  a Swiss – American, at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York in 1896.

The original was made with celery, apple and grapes – nuts were added a bit later.

Either use green skinned apples for an all green look or red skinned for a nice contrast.

Toasted walnuts are delicious – just take care and watch them so you do not burn them!

Ingredients

  • 6 sticks of celery 
  • 2 eating apples – Braeburn are good
  • 100g walnuts – toasted
  • 100 – 150g seedless green grapes 
  • 2-3 tablespoons of full fat mayonnaise
  • Juice of half a lemon
  • *
  • Crispy lettuce leaves to serve

Method

  • Thinly slice the celery stalks
  • Core the apples and chop into small pieces
  • Chop the toasted walnuts into small pieces
  • Cut the grapes into halves
  • Mix the celery, apples, nuts and grapes together
  • Mix the mayonnaise with the lemon juice
  • Mix the dressing with the salad
  •  *
  • Hand shred the lettuce leaves and put them in the at the bottom of a shallow bowl
  • Heap the salad on top of the lettuce.

 

Serving Variation

For individual servings put one or two lettuce leaves per person in a small dish and spoon some salad in the middle.

Salad after Fawlty Towers

Recently I have been watching my box set of Fawlty Towers DVDs, which is still so amusing after all these years.

Whilst watching the episode with the American guest and the Waldorf salad  – when famously Basil Fawlty says  “I think we’re just out of  waldorfs” – I thought must try that!

I needed a salad for dinner but realised I did not have all the ingredients so decided to make a similar salad with the ingredients I had.

I will get all the ingredients for a real Waldorf salad and make that soon.

Ingredients

  • Half a white or sweetheart cabbage
  • 2 eating apples – I used Braeburn*
  • 100g of walnuts – chopped
  • 2 -3 tablespoons of mayonnaise – full fat is best

Method

  • Shred and chop the cabbage into fine pieces.
  • Core the apples and chop into small pieces.
  • Mix the cabbage, apples and walnuts together.
  • Mix in the mayonnaise.

* 

Braeburn apples originated in New Zealand in the 1950s.

They are named after Braeburn Orchard where they where first commercially grown.

 

 

 

Red on Red!

I recently went to a family gathering, although it was in fact a very sad occasion, it did include a lovely buffet meal.

There was a beetroot and carrot salad served, which had a lovely sweetness and seemed to me quite Polish in style.

I asked one of cousins if she knew who had made the salad and was told that this was one of the dishes supplied by a local “deli” in Consett.

So I have had a go at making this and made one with beetroot and another with red cabbage – both delicious.

Serve with cold meats and Polish style sausages or roast pork or grilled lamb chops.

Sweet Red Dressing

I made the same dressing for both of the salads – using redcurrant the first time and lingonberry the second.

Ingredients

  • Around 200g (7-8 tablespoons) of either Redcurrant jelly, Lingonberry jam or Cranberry sauce.
  • Juice of one lemon.

Method

  • Put the jelly/jam into a small saucepan.
  • Add the lemon juice.
  • Heat gently and stir with a wooden spoon.
  • Keep stirring until the ingredients have combined and you have a thick liquid.
  • Leave to cool before use.

Beetroot & Carrot Salad

Ingredients

  • Boiled beetroots  – I used 2 vacuum packets
  • 2 Carrots

Method

  • Chop the beetroot into small chunks or cubes.
  • Grate the carrots using the coarse grater.
  • Mix the beetroot and carrots together.
  • Pour the dressing over them and mix well.
  • *
  • I found that this was better if it was left for many hours as the beetroot really absorbs the dressing.
  • You can add the dressing to the beetroots first and leave overnight and then add the carrots the next day.

 

  • Instead of chopping the beetroot you can grate it using a coarse grater.

Red Cabbage & Carrot Salad

Ingredients

  • Half a red cabbage
  • 2 carrots

Method

  • Grate the red cabbage using a coarse grater.
  • Grate the carrots.
  • Mix the red cabbage and carrots together.
  • Pour the dressing over them and mix well.
  • *
  • This is also better when left for several hours before serving.

Note 

Both keep well for several days in a covered glass or plastic container in the fridge.

Dutch Cold Dish & Other Salads

I recently returned from a trip to The Netherlands to visit my friend again.

I always have a great time visiting different parts of the country and enjoying the wonderful hospitality.

One dish I have had many times is Koudeschotel – this translates as Cold Dish.

I think it is a sort of  “posh cousin” to  several Polish cooked salads such as Potato Salad and Mixed Vegetable Salad.

It is often made in large quantities as the centrepiece in a buffet meal.

There is a central mound made with boiled potatoes mashed with mayonnaise, onions, peas, carrots and cooked meat like chicken, pork or beef.

This is then decorated with items such as hard boiled eggs, gherkins, silver-skin onions, prawns or shrimps, asparagus, tomatoes, cooked or smoked meats and dusted with a little sweet paprika.

 

The koudeschotel on my arrival from England this year.

If the central mound is made without meat it is sometimes called Huzarensalade – Huzar’s Salad.

Ingredients – for the central mound

The original recipe  was for a large amount suitable for a big party – I have scaled it down.

  • 1 Kg of cold boiled potatoes
  • Around 200ml of mayonnaise – real full fat is best
  • 100g of cooked peas
  • 1 large onion chopped fine
  • 2 boiled carrots – diced
  • 200g of cooked chicken, pork or beef – shredded (meat used to make soup or stock is good)
  • Salt & pepper to taste

Notes

Many supermarkets and delicatessens in The Netherlands sell this mixture ready made.

Method

  • Mash the potatoes with the mayonnaise.
  • Add the peas, carrots, onion and meat and mix well.
  • Season to taste.

  • Arrange the mixture in the centre of a serving plate.

Decorate with a selection of the following:

  • Hard boiled eggs – sliced or quartered
  • Gherkins – small or large ones sliced
  • Silver-skin onions
  • Cooked prawns or shrimps,
  • Cooked asparagus spears or slices
  • Tomatoes – quartered
  • Cooked or smoked meats – chopped or in little slices
  • Dusted with a little sweet paprika.

Now is the time to be a little creative with the decoration – I tend to do rows of the different ingredients and dust with sweet paprika at the end.

(For smaller gatherings sometimes the mixture is placed in a bowl and the eggs and gherkins etc are just placed on top)

Other Salads

One day we went to a neighbour’s house for a BBQ and koudeschotel was one of the dishes served with the grilled meats.

We were also served the following two lovely salads –

Cabbage & Pineapple Salad

Ingredients

  • Small white cabbage
  • 8 rings of fresh or tinned in juice pineapple
  • 50 – 80g of raisins

Method

  • Soak the raisins in pineapple juice for at least 30 minutes
  • Shred and chop the cabbage
  • Chop the pineapple rings into small pieces
  • Mix the cabbage, pineapple and the raisins in juice together

Salad with Smoked Salmon & Capers

Ingredients

  • Crunchy lettuce such as Cos or  Little Gem – I used a Red Little Gem
  • 100g Smoked Salmon
  • 2 or 3 sticks of celery – finely sliced
  • 1 tablespoon of capers
  • 100g of cooked small sized pasta
  • Juice of half a lemon
  • Ground black pepper

Method

  • Hand tear the lettuce into medium sized pieces.
  • Chop the smoked salmon into small pieces.
  • Mix the smoked salmon, capers and pasta together and
  • Mix this with the lettuce.
  • Pour the lemon juice over this and mix.
  • Season with black pepper.
  • Extra salt should not be needed because of the capers & smoked salmon.

 

You could serve this as a starter using a few lettuce leaves as a bed on each plate with the smoked salmon mixture in the centre.