Edamame, Radish and Corn Salad

After a weekend ... no make that a week ... of unhealthy dining and irregular meals (if a chocolate tart at 10pm for supper (three days in a row) isn't unhealthy, I don't know what is!), I've decided to eat healthy this week. 

No, that doesn't mean just salads and soups and stuff but it does mean cutting back on the sweets, oily, deep-fried, greasy grub that I've been indulging on for what seems like too long.

I started with this simple Monday salad: edamame, sweet corn, red radish, walnuts and Parmesan cheese. The dressing: olive oil, rice-wine vinegar, lemon, honey, garlic, salt and pepper. Purely improvised (which means it doesn't have a fancy name) but tasty nonetheless.

I've never been a big fan of salads, rally. Raw or barely cooked vegetables with dressing? I'd reach for a plate of steaming curry noodles any day. But all it took is one fantastic salad to change my mind. That one fantastic salad was one I had recently at a friend's home. Just green apples, Feta cheese, spinach and walnuts. There was a choice of dressing: a simple red-wine vinegar dressing or a blue-cheese one. I opted for the latter and was in heaven. Wowza. Salad? Really?

That was a while ago and I have to admit that I am now a salad convert.  It won't be the first thing I gravitate towards at a buffet but it wouldn't be the last thing I'd touch with a ten-feet pole either. 

I don't know if this salad will blow your mind the way the apple salad did mine but it's tasty and has some of my favourite ingredients in it: edamame, walnuts, cheese and radish. Delicious, peppery red radish. 

Just a little but of olive oil and salt and pepper would have been enough to dress this salad, really, but I opted for a little tang from the rice-wine vinegar and lemon and then some sweetness from honey (which really goes well with the Parmesan). 

Edamame, Radish and Corn Salad

1 cup edamame (I used frozen ones in the shell so I dunked them in salted, boiling water for a couple of minutes).

1/4 cup corn, steamed. 

2-3 radishes, sliced thin.

Walnuts, toasted and roughly chopped, a loose handful

Parmesan cheese, shaved

Parsley leaves, a handful

For the dressing

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp rice-wine vinegar

1 tsp lemon juice

1 clove garlic, chopped fine

1 -2 tsp honey

salt and pepper

Combine the edamame, corn, radish, parsley, nuts and cheese. 

Whisk the oil, vinegar, lemon juice, honey and garlic until emulsified. Add the sugar, salt and pepper (as much as you need) and whisk till combined. 

Dress salad. Eat. 

Roasted Veg Salad with Croutons and Tempeh Bits

I decided to make myself a salad for lunch today. This is seriously strange behaviour  because I hardly ever eat salads and I almost never make myself a salad at home. I think I may have done so once before. Just once, a couple of year back. I prefer cooked food: a baked tart, a robust curry, a cheesy quiche, a plate of steaming fried noodles with egg, greens and beans sprouts, a piping hot bowl of spicy, curry laksa. Oh yum.

So why did I make myself a salad today? Hell if I know!

Oh wait! I do know. I was dying to use the two bottles of dressing (well, I use them as dressing) I had just purchased recently: the first, a bottle of pumpkin seed oil which Ii actually didn't buy but received as a gift from a dear friend. The second is a bottle of chilli oil which I brought all the way from Italy where I was on vacation just recently. (I'd eaten a mushroom bruschetta in a restaurant somewhere in Florence that I absolutely loved. The secret ingredient was chilli oil which not only coated the mushrooms but oozed into the bread. It was so, so good that I bought a couple of bottles of chilli oil home).

Technically, this is a cooked salad. The vegetables (and I naturally only chose vegetables I love) are roasted and even the garnishes — tempeh bits and focaccia croutons — have been cooked. I chose carrots, parsnips, beets, eggplant and peppers: all of which transform magically from being "just nice tasting vegetables" to "freaking awesome morsels" once they come out of the oven.

Seriously folks, roasting vegetables completely transforms them. Roasting brings out flavours you don't realise exist in many vegetables. Take cauliflower, for example. Not a terribly tasty vegetable ordinarily. Put it in the oven (with some olive oil, salt and pepper) and it becomes surprisingly delicious — nutty and slightly sweet.  Even celery. Ever try roasting celery? You must ... and add it in an egg salad. Oh brother ... it's amazing!

I didn't use cauliflower or celery in my salad but the vegetables I did choose come out extraordinarily well once roasted: the carrots become even sweeter, parsnips tasted out of this word as did the peppers and beets! A sweet symphony of vegetables. Ok, I admit I chose vegetables that would look amazing together on a plate too: a gorgeous mix of autumn colours.

I had a few end-slices of chilli focaccia sitting in the fridge: I'd baked a loaf yesterday to make some sandwiches for a few friends and these were the scraps left over. Not enough to make a sandwich with, these were perfect to make croutons with. I toasted and added them in my salad. 

For some crunch (and a garnish) I added crunchy tempeh bits:I sliced a block of tempeh into paper thin pieces, seasoned the slices with a little chilli powder, salt and pepper and then deep fried the slices until they became golden and crispy. Once they cooled off, I crumbled them with my fingers and sprinkled them on my salad.

The final touch was the chevril: a mild herb that adds freshness to the dish.

Oh! And a word about the dressing. The pumpkin seed oil is really nutty and rich and delicious. It's been known to go really well with vanilla ice cream (oh, yes!) but it's great on bread, on salads and pasta. The Chilli oil? Oh my. It just adds a nice kick to this otherwise sweetish salad.

Roasted Vegetable Salad With Croutons and Tempeh Bits
(makes 4)

1 carrot, cubed
1 parsnip, cubes
1 eggplant, cubed
1 small beet root, cubed
50g tempeh, sliced paper thin
1 cup croutons
1 tbsp pumpkin seed oil
1 tbsp chilli oil
a handful of chevril.

Rub some salt on the eggplant cubes and set aside for 20 mins. Drain the water that oozes out (it will be bitter), rinse the cubes and pat dry.

Toss the carrots, parsnips, eggplant in olive oil and spread them out on a baking tray. Toss the beet root in olive oil separately (you don't want the pink to get on the other vegetables), place them in some foil and place them on the edge of the same tray.

Sprinkle a little salt and pepper on the vegetables and bake in a preheated oven (180C) for about 30-40 mins, till soft and caramelised.

Meanwhile, deep fry the tempeh slices till golden. Drain and cool. Break them into bits/crumbs.

Once the vegetables are done, combine them in a bowl, add the croutons and add the pumpkin seed oil and chilli oil and toss. Add the bacon bits and chevril. Voila!

Going green

I am easily seduced by gorgeous photos of food. I was leafing through the December/January issue of Australian food mag Delicious and was attracted to a picture of a green pea salad with mint. This is highly paranormal behaviour because I simply detest salads. Raw food is just so raw-ng, isnt it?

But, who can explain the stronghold of seduction and I found drawn to the vibrant greens in the salad -- there was nothing but green peas,  sweet peas, snow peas, spinach  and mint.

I decided to try it. Thankfully, the recipe require that the vegetables be cooked in salted water for a few minutes. Since I also used asparagus, I kept them in the boiling salt water for a while longer so they woudn't be stringy.

The dressing in the recipe was a olive oil-mustard-red wine vinegar-sugar combo but I decided to make my own, keeping with the pea theme.

The pea sauce (similar to a pea soup but thicker consistency) just has you browning some onion and then cooking the onions with some garlic and required peas in vegetable stock. Add some milk (evaporated milk would be tastier) and then blend. Back on the fire for a bit; add seasoing.



Honestly, I was surprised how good the salad was. The sauce was tasty but I think simply seasoning the vegs with salt and pepper and some paprika would do.

An extension of this green theme is a green grape salsa I made. I had a whole bunch of grapes at home, a buah tangan from a friend. I like grapes but this was a huge bunch and I was afraid it would go bad before I could finish them. Hence the salsa. Green grape, pulsed; red chilli, scallions and nuts, chopped small, green peas and a dressing of lime juice, blasamic vinegar, salt and pepper is all it requires.



I am havin a lot of fun     coming up with salad recipes that I would like and I think I may be eating a lot more salads in 2010.

Cooked salads though cos i still think  raw salads are so rawng.