Elevate your salad to a main course

Spanishchef.net recommends these products

Elevate your salad to a main course

Let’s face it. Many of us think of a salad as that bowl of greens you distastefully peck at when you’d much rather have a hearty meal. But the two needn’t be different categories: The salad can well be that hearty, wholesome meal that contains a balance of all nutrients (proteins, vegetables, fat, carbohydrates); tastes (astringent, bitter, sweet, salt, pungent, sour); textures; and colours. There’s a science—and art—to constructing the perfect salad.

The building

Building a salad comes in three easy steps, says Mumbai-based food blogger Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal: Lay the foundation (with some leaves), build it up (with vegetables, proteins, or carbohydrates), and dress it up (with a dressing and some additional ingredients like nuts). The “foundation”, says Ghildiyal, is the body of your salad (half to three-quarters of your salad) and should ideally be two parts assorted leafy greens and two parts other vegetables. The building-up process is more versatile: You can either top up the green base with some more vegetables (tomato, cucumber, onion, spring onion, carrot, radish, blanched beans, cauliflower, peppers, mushroom, olives, capers, broccoli, the list is almost endless) or add some carbohydrates like potatoes, couscous, rice or pasta. This is also where you add proteins like beans, paneer (cottage cheese), meats/seafood and cheese.

The dressing comes third. Make sure you don’t go overboard with creamy, calorific dressing; rather, opt for thinner ones like olive oil, and vinaigrette dressings (these comprise oil and vinegar and are accented with ingredients like herbs, spices, garlic and shallots). In this last step you can also sprinkle nuts such as walnuts, almonds, peanuts), or roasted seeds like sesame or sunflower, anything that sets off the overall taste of the salad either in texture or taste. “Cooked fresh sweetcorn add a wonderful crunch; plump berries are very pleasing for that touch of tart sweetness in an otherwise savoury salad,” says Ghildiyal.

But within the basic rules of salad formation, it’s important to know which ingredient is a better option than another. Mumbai-based nutritionist, chef and author of the recently launched The Beauty Diet, Shonali Sabherwal, says she always looks at what an ingredient brings to the salad. The greens top her list—“they are rich in chlorophyll, they contain protein, fibre, carbohydrates, minerals, vitamins, antioxidants, and they help clean the digestive system with their enzymes.” When it comes to carbs she sticks mainly to “supergrains” like brown rice, quinoa or even amaranth (or rajgira) to make a salad. “Quinoa and amaranth bring in a higher protein quotient than meat, and brown rice with veggies is loaded with complex carbohydrates and provides you with great fibre and sustained blood sugar for the day as well,” she says. For sweetness, she adds a fruit, while nuts (walnuts or almonds) and seeds (sunflower, pumpkin or flax) bring in the good fats, omega-3 and some fibre. “Sometimes I even do bean salad using chickpea or sprouted moong (green gram) or black beans or even soybeans—which adds extra protein to a meal,” Sabherwal says.

The balancing

Most traditional salads have been balanced, complete meals, says Devraj Halder, executive assistant manager, food and beverages, The Suryaa New Delhi. The Italian Caesar salad comes with lettuce, onions, capers, string beans (vegetables); chicken (protein), croutons (carbohydrates), dressing (either Caeser or a healthier, lemon-olive oil, which is the fat).

Rojak Buah: This Malaysian salad combines the flavours of fruits with shrimp, lemon and chilli.

Greek salad comes with bell peppers, olives, feta cheese (proteins and fat), and pita bread (carbs); and some versions of Russian salad have cured meat, eggs, Ukrainian bread, and preserved vegetables. In India, says Halder, there is the koshimbir from Tamil Nadu, which is made with soaked moong dal (green gram), cucumber, tomatoes, lemon juice, onions and some grated coconut. Lebanese fattoush comes with parsley (a large amount, which forms the green leafy body of the salad), broken wheat and lemon juice, he adds.

Then come to balance of flavours. According to Ayurveda, the balance of the different tastes or “rasas” is the best way to optimize nutrition in a meal, says Vishal Atreya, executive sous chef, The Imperial, New Delhi. The four tastes are: salt, sour, bitter and sweet. Examples of salt sources are table salt or rock salt, sea salt, even cured meats/fish; sour is lemon, vinegar, tomatoes; sugar is honey, fruits such as banana or mango, maple syrup, raisins, prunes and dates. The Japanese recognize a fifth flavour in their cuisine called umami, which is a combination of astringent and pungent, says Atreya. Examples of astringent are onions, garlic, mustard, methi (fenugreek) and celery. Yasai Sarada, a Japanese salad, blends all the five flavours—with fresh lettuce, vinegar dressing, lemon juice, salt, sugar, and toasted sesame seeds. There’s also the Yakiniku which combines grilled chicken with teriyaki sauce, onions, lettuce and toga rashi, a type of Japanese paprika. The Malaysian Rojak Buah combines the sweet tang of fruits like green apple, raw mango, plum with chillies and shrimp paste.

We’re leaving you with recipes which tick all the boxes: from balancing nutrients to balancing the rasas.

Brown Rice Salad with Veggies

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 cups cooked brown rice (long grain or short grain)

3 cups boiling water

1 small onion, diced

6 green beans, cut diagonally

1 cup cabbage, finely chopped

1 cup carrot, cubed

4 tbsp sunflower seeds

For the dressing

(makes 1 1/2 cups)

2 small garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped

2 pinches of sea salt

1-3 Madras onions (shallots), chopped

1/3 cup lime juice

Freshly ground pepper

3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Method

Add the beans, carrots and onion to boiling water, make sure they do not over-boil and remain crisp. Remove and keep aside. In the same water, add cabbage and blanch it for a minute. To make the dressing, add all the ingredients in a small blender, except olive oil. Slowly pour olive oil from the top while still whisking the ingredients. This will make your dressing creamy. Now mix the rice, the vegetables and the dressing. Put the sunflower seeds on top and serve.

—Shonali Sabherwal

Asian Pear Salad with Mixed Greens, Blue Cheese and Candied Pecan Nuts

Serves 2

Ingredients

100g mixed salad greens

20g pecan nuts (substitute with walnuts)

20ml honey

25ml maple syrup (natural)

5g blackcurrants

10g blue cheese

50g Asian pears, sliced

120ml pear juice

20ml lemon juice

5g salt

30ml olive oil

Method

Clean and wash the lettuce leaves and keep aside. Mix honey and maple syrup and cook gently. Add pecans to this mixture and cook for 1 minute. Spread on grease-proof paper and allow to cool. Reduce the pear juice to one-third and make vinaigrette by adding lemon juice, salt and olive oil. Add the blackcurrants to the vinaigrette. Mix the lettuce leaves with sliced pears and arrange on a plate. Sprinkle with blue cheese and the pear vinaigrette and nuts. Serve chilled.

—Vishal Atreya, The Imperial, New Delhi.

Yakiniku

Serves 2

Ingredients

Zen of goodness: The Japanese Yakiniku with grilled chicken, onions and lettuce.

200g grilled chicken

100g mixed greens

1 onion, thinly sliced

1 leek, thinly sliced

1 green bell pepper, sliced

2 stalks green onions, sliced

2 tbsp olive oil, for stir-frying

1 tsp toasted sesame seeds

For the dressing

3/4 cup teriyaki sauce

1 tbsp Lemon Juice

Chilli paste, to taste

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup Japanese sake

2 tbsp dark brown sugar

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 tsp sesame oil

Method

Mix together the ingredients for the dressing in a saucepan on low heat until boiling.

Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a stir-fry pan at low-medium heat. Add green bell pepper; stir-fry for 2 minutes, set aside on a plate. Add the chicken, stir-fry for 2 minutes on each side. Add onion, leeks and the bell pepper into the pan. Sprinkle green onion and toasted sesame seeds to finish. Now toss this with the dressing, create a base with the fresh greens, and serve.

—Devraj Halder, executive assistant manager, food and beverages, The Suryaa New Delhi.

[email protected]

If you require a high quality printout of this article, just click on the printer symbol next to ’Share and enjoy’, and we will do the rest.

Get the best website builder available anywhere –SBI! Lick here for more information

Return from salad to Home Page

If you want to increase your site popularity and gain thousands of visitors – check out these sites THEY ARE FREE. Spanishchef more than doubled its ‘New Visitors’ last month simply by signing up to these sites: