Advertisement
Treat yourself!
Frugal and fabulous!
What's on at the football club?
Cheat book: product info etc
Salads with a twist: All-occasion ideas
For main courses, starters and buffet dishes, try any of these salads from around the world. Some may be familiar, such as France's Niçoise; others intriguing, such as the sweet-spicy Thai mix of beef and grapes. For easy ideas, dip bread into roasted tomatoes or add tangy Roquefort to potato salad.
Mixed Vegetable Salad a la Grecque
This is not a new recipe, but one I've always loved to serve at buffet parties. It has lots of gutsy flavours, can be made well in advance and doesn't need any last-minute attention.
Green Herb and Rice Salad
This is an excellent way to serve rice, cold at a buffet party or warm with barbecue food.
Anya Potato Salad with Shallots and Vinaigrette
I love the consistently good flavour of Anya potatoes. If you can't get them, try to buy other good-flavoured salad potatoes for this.
Chicken Salad with Tarragon and Grapes
This is the perfect main course salad for lunch, with perhaps some rice salad to go with it.
Middle Eastern Tabbouleh Salad
This Middle Eastern salad is so pretty and summery, and if you have mint in the garden which is growing wild as a jungle – as mine does – it's a wonderful way to use some of it!
Mixed-leaf Caesar Salad
This must be one of the greatest salad recipes ever. It's traditionally made with Cos lettuce, but I like a mixture of lettuce and some crunchy rocket leaves. What it can't take is anything too soft – only the crunchiest leaves will do.
Salade Niçoise
Nothing has changed much here over the long years I've been cooking and writing recipes – this is still one of the best combinations of salad ingredients ever invented. In Provence lettuce was sometimes used, sometimes not, but I now like to abandon the lettuce in favour of a few rocket leaves.
Roasted Vegetable Couscous Salad with Harissa-style Dressing
This salad is one of the best vegetarian dishes I've ever served. The combination of goats' cheese and roasted vegetables on a cool bed of couscous mixed with salad leaves and a spicy dressing is positively five-star.
Grilled Spanish Onion with Rocket-leaf Salad
I am constantly amazed after all my years of cooking at how there can be anything new – but there always is, again and again. This is an example, utterly simple, yet quite unlike any other salad. If rocket leaves are unavailable, flat-leaf parsley with lamb's lettuce is a good substitute.
Broad Bean Salad with Pancetta and Sherry Vinegar
The fresh broad bean season seems to be so short, I always feel the need to feast as much as possible when I can, hence this salad. It's good as a first course or to serve alongside other salads in a cold buffet.
Four Star Salad
This salad is a meal in itself. The stars in question here are avocado, French garlic sausage, mushroom and lettuce, with a lovely, garlicky, soured cream dressing.
Thai Grilled-beef Salad with Grapes
This recipe was given to me by chef Norbert Kostner at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Bangkok when I visited the cookery school there. It's lovely served as a first course or included in a cold-buffet menu.
White Bean and Tuna Fish Salad with Lemon Pepper Dressing
This is my version of an old Italian favourite, and I think the addition of a sharp lemon dressing and some buttery rocket leaves gives a lovely edge.
Tunisian Aubergine Salad with Coriander and Yoghurt
This is my adaptation of an Elizabeth David recipe. I never actually made it from her book, but one of my favourite restaurants, Chez Bruce, in Wandsworth, London, regularly serves it as a first course. It's so wonderful I never have anything else if it's on the menu.
Camargue Red Rice Salad with Feta Cheese
This is a lovely salad for outdoor eating on a warm, sunny summer's day.
Roasted Tomato Salad
If you are a tomato addict, like me, and you think that good bread dipped into fruity olive oil and tomato juices is the food of the gods, then roast the tomatoes first and you'll agree that the gods have excelled themselves.
American Chef's Salad
A chef's salad is so named because it is supposed to be an innovative way of using whatever you happen to have handy to create a main-course salad. Ham, salami, chicken, turkey or any cold meat could be used for this one; similarly any kind of cheese or salad vegetable.
Char-grilled Aubergine and Roasted Tomato Salad with Feta Cheese
I am indebted to Chris Payne, who very generously gave me this splendid recipe. If you don't possess a ridged grill pan, you could grill the aubergine slices till nicely browned and tender.
Potato Salad with Roquefort
This potato salad, with creamy, piquant Roquefort and the added crunch of celery and shallots, is good to eat all by itself, but I also like to serve it with cold cuts at a buffet lunch. It's therefore a very good recipe to have around at Christmas.
Pesto Rice Salad
This salad can be served warm as a first course and it's extremely good as an accompaniment to fish or chicken main course dishes. If you can get Pecorino Romano for the pesto it has a more gutsy flavour than Parmesan but, if you can't, Parmesan will do well.
Curried Chicken Salad
This is unbelievably easy if you buy ready-cooked chicken.
Warm Lentil Salad with Walnuts and Goats' Cheese
We should all be eating more pulses, so the more recipes that include them the better. In this warm salad, I've chosen the little tiny black-grey Puy lentils, but the green or brown variety will work just as well, given slightly less cooking time.
Marinated Courgette and Coriander Salad
Courgettes harvested young and tender are perfect in this salad, based on the classic à la Grecque theme – serve it as a starter with chunks of sourdough bread or as an accompaniment to grilled chicken or fish.
