Tag: salad

Bang bang chicken

~ Sophie ~ Leave a comment

A joyful salad! Will make your mouth giggle with happily contrasting flavours and textures. Spicy, peanutty, crunchy, fresh and lovely.

  • 2 chicken breasts, poached and then allowed to go cold. (To poach the chicken, use 2 tbsp soy sauce and water to cover. Add ginger slices, a garlic clove and lemongrass to flavour the liquid. Put chicken into the pan, bring to the boil and then simmer for 10 mins)
  • Large handful of cashew nuts, toasted
  • Cooked, fine rice noodles
  • Finely sliced salad veg including cucumber, carrot, radishes, spring onion, cabbage, mange tout and bean sprouts
  • Red chilli, finely sliced
  • 4 tbsp rice vinegar
  • 2 tbsp soy sauce
  • Fresh coriander leaves
  • 1 tbsp veg oil
  • 1 clove garlic, grated
  • 1 tsp grated ginger
  • ½ tsp dried chilli flakes
  • 1 heaped tbsp brown sugar
  • 3 heaped tbsp crunchy peanut butter
  • 1 tbsp tahini/sesame paste
  • 1 tbsp light soy sauce
  • Juice of ½ lime
  • 1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
  • 100-150ml water
  1. Make the salad by shredding the chicken and prepping the veg. Cook and cool the noodles
  2. For the sauce, heat the oil gently in a small pan. Add garlic, ginger and chilli flakes and cook until just starting to colour
  3. Add brown sugar, tahini, peanut butter, soy sauce and lime juice and warm through until sugar is dissolved
  4. Loosen with the water and, once it’s got to pourable consistency, take off the heat and stir through the sesame oil
  5. Place salad and noodles on a plate, drizzle with the rice vinegar and soy sauce and toss through. Then top with the chicken shreds and cashew nuts. Dress with the peanut sauce and garnish with fresh coriander and red chilli

Cucumber salad

~ Sophie ~ 1 Comment

Simple, spiky, sweet, tangy, mouthwatering. Goes with anything. Feeds 2

  • Half a cucumber
  • 4 tbsp vinegar
  • 2 tbsp caster sugar
  • Pinch of salt
  1. Slice the cucumber as thin as poss, use a mandolin if you have one
  2. In a cup, mix together the vinegar, sugar and salt. Stir until dissolved
  3. Pour over the cucumber slices and mix through. Leave for 5 mins before serving, but no more than half an hour

If you’re making this to go with SE Asian food, use rice vinegar and garnish with sliced red chilli. If it’s Eastern European, use white wine vinegar, add a load of freshly ground black pepper or fresh chopped dill. If you’re just eating it with a pile of barbecued sausages, you can keep it plain!

Green mango salad

~ Sophie ~ 1 Comment

A brilliant summer salad to serve with something barbecued and spicy. Cool, refreshing, crunchy, sweet, sour, nutty, herby. It’s like a small and very delicious party in your mouth. A favourite with everyone who tries it. Feeds 4-6 as a side dish. Don’t worry about exact quantities – it’s very forgiving!

  • 1 large unripe mango – it needs to be unripe or it’ll turn to mush when you slice it
  • ½ red pepper
  • ½ small red onion
  • 4 tbsp fresh mint, chopped
  • 6 tbsp fresh coriander, chopped
  • 4 tbsp roasted unsalted peanuts, coarsely ground (not too fine, into small pieces rather than meal)
  • 6 tbsp roasted unsalted cashew nuts
  • 1 tbsp Thai fish sauce
  • ½ clove garlic, minced as finely as poss (a microplane grater is ideal for this)
  • 3 tbsp caster sugar
  • 1 tbsp lime juice
  • 1 tbsp peanut oil (or any unflavoured oil)
  1. Peel the mango using a vegetable peeler.
  2. The description of how to cut them is a bit complicated. If it makes no sense, just bear in mind that, at the end of the process, you should end up with a large pile of long and very thin strips of mango. Here goes… Lie the peeled mango on one of its broad sides and, holding it firmly and still, use a large (very sharp!) knife to cut into it lengthways from top to bottom in very narrow stripes down to the stone about 3-5mm apart. Cut a small slice off the base of the mango so it can stand on its end without falling over then stand it up and cut very thin layers off the sliced front of the mango. Turn the mango round and repeat the process on the other side. With the edge pieces where there is no stone, just chop them off and slice them separately
  3. Cut the red pepper into long, thin strips to match the mango
  4. Cut the red onion into wafer-thin half moons.
  5. Put the mango, red pepper, red onion, herbs and peanuts in a bowl
  6. To make the dressing, mix together the garlic, sugar, fish sauce, lime juice and oil. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. It smells quite pungent, but it tastes really good, so don’t worry!
  7. Pour the dressing over the salad and mix it all together so that everything is coated. Taste and adjust the seasoning if needed – it should be piquant with garlic, sour with lime, sweet with sugar, savoury with the fish sauce, and you should be able to taste all the different elements being delicious in perfect harmony.
  8. Serve immediately (or within the hour)