garlic
1 tablespoon chilli oil
Maldon salt
1 x 325g jar sweet peppers in oil
bunch fresh mint, chopped
Crumble the goat’s cheese and marinate in the juice and zest of half the lemon, half the olive oil and the dried mint.
Put the lentils in a large saucepan of water and add the onion, halved, along with the garlic cloves and chilli oil. Cook for about 25 minutes or until tender – be certain to check after about 18 minutes and then drain.
Pour the remaining olive oil over the warm lentils, season with salt, and add the juice and zest of the remaining half lemon. Drain the peppers and mix them into the lentils, which I find easiest to do with my hands; for one thing, it makes you less likely to crush the lentils.
When the salad has reached room temperature, add the marinated goat’s cheese and sprinkle over the fresh chopped mint.
Serves 6–8.
ITALIAN BEETROOT SALAD
I came across this in the great late Jane Grigson’s Vegetable Book , and it serves as a reminder that we, like children, need to be shaken out of our squeamish food prejudices. There’s something about the flabby, sweet, cooked flesh of beetroot that’s always slightly spooked me but the robust simplicity of this – the plain, but striking arrangement of just beetroot, onion, mint, olive oil and red wine vinegar – has made me override, completely, my raw-beetroot-salad-only rule.
You do have to be picky about the beetroot, though. Buy it cooked by all means, but make sure it’s not lethally macerated in brine or vinegar; vacuum-packed is fine, and these tend to be smaller and nuttier in taste than those monstrous globes I remember from school.
As in the Greek Salad , I like to steep the red onion rings in the vinegar for a while first. To be frank, a quarter of an hour is probably enough to stave off acridness and bring all that glimmering pinkness to the fore which, against the garnet darkness of the beets, produces a satisfaction of its own.
We might not initially consider mint to be a characteristically Italian ingredient, but that is largely because of the culinary domination of the cooking of Northern Italy in recent years: in the South, mint grows in the wild and finds its way, as a matter of course, into the kitchen.
I love this salad particularly with cold duck; a little grated orange zest, sprinkled along with the mint, wouldn’t go amiss in this partnership either.
1 red onion
2 x 15ml tablespoons red wine vinegar
8 large or 16 small cooked beetroot (about 750g)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons of chopped fresh mint
Maldon salt
Peel the onion and cut it into fine rings, then sit these rings in a shallow bowl and spoon over the red wine vinegar. Cover with clingfilm and leave to steep for at least a quarter of an hour or for up to three.
Slice the beetroot and arrange these rounds on a large plate, top gracefully with the onion rings, pouring over any vinegar from the bowl and then drizzle over the oil and sprinkle with the mint and Maldon salt.
Serves 4–6.
WATERMELON, FETA AND BLACK OLIVE SALAD
As improbable as it might sound, this combination is utterly fantastic, both savoury and refreshing at the same time. You can pare it down to the essential contrast, and serve no more than a plate of chunked watermelon, sprinkled with feta and mint and spritzed with lime, but this full-length version is hardly troublesome to make and once made will, I assure you, become a regular feature of your summer table.
1 small red onion
2–4 limes, depending on juiciness
1.5 kg sweet, ripe watermelon
250g feta cheese
bunch fresh flat-leaf parsley
bunch fresh mint, chopped
3–4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
100g pitted black olives
black pepper
Peel and halve the red onion and cut into very fine half-moons and put in a small bowl to steep with the lime juice, to bring out the transparent pinkness in the onions and diminish their rasp. Two limes’ worth should do it, but you can find the fruits
1 tablespoon chilli oil
Maldon salt
1 x 325g jar sweet peppers in oil
bunch fresh mint, chopped
Crumble the goat’s cheese and marinate in the juice and zest of half the lemon, half the olive oil and the dried mint.
Put the lentils in a large saucepan of water and add the onion, halved, along with the garlic cloves and chilli oil. Cook for about 25 minutes or until tender – be certain to check after about 18 minutes and then drain.
Pour the remaining olive oil over the warm lentils, season with salt, and add the juice and zest of the remaining half lemon. Drain the peppers and mix them into the lentils, which I find easiest to do with my hands; for one thing, it makes you less likely to crush the lentils.
When the salad has reached room temperature, add the marinated goat’s cheese and sprinkle over the fresh chopped mint.
Serves 6–8.
ITALIAN BEETROOT SALAD
I came across this in the great late Jane Grigson’s Vegetable Book , and it serves as a reminder that we, like children, need to be shaken out of our squeamish food prejudices. There’s something about the flabby, sweet, cooked flesh of beetroot that’s always slightly spooked me but the robust simplicity of this – the plain, but striking arrangement of just beetroot, onion, mint, olive oil and red wine vinegar – has made me override, completely, my raw-beetroot-salad-only rule.
You do have to be picky about the beetroot, though. Buy it cooked by all means, but make sure it’s not lethally macerated in brine or vinegar; vacuum-packed is fine, and these tend to be smaller and nuttier in taste than those monstrous globes I remember from school.
As in the Greek Salad , I like to steep the red onion rings in the vinegar for a while first. To be frank, a quarter of an hour is probably enough to stave off acridness and bring all that glimmering pinkness to the fore which, against the garnet darkness of the beets, produces a satisfaction of its own.
We might not initially consider mint to be a characteristically Italian ingredient, but that is largely because of the culinary domination of the cooking of Northern Italy in recent years: in the South, mint grows in the wild and finds its way, as a matter of course, into the kitchen.
I love this salad particularly with cold duck; a little grated orange zest, sprinkled along with the mint, wouldn’t go amiss in this partnership either.
1 red onion
2 x 15ml tablespoons red wine vinegar
8 large or 16 small cooked beetroot (about 750g)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons of chopped fresh mint
Maldon salt
Peel the onion and cut it into fine rings, then sit these rings in a shallow bowl and spoon over the red wine vinegar. Cover with clingfilm and leave to steep for at least a quarter of an hour or for up to three.
Slice the beetroot and arrange these rounds on a large plate, top gracefully with the onion rings, pouring over any vinegar from the bowl and then drizzle over the oil and sprinkle with the mint and Maldon salt.
Serves 4–6.
WATERMELON, FETA AND BLACK OLIVE SALAD
As improbable as it might sound, this combination is utterly fantastic, both savoury and refreshing at the same time. You can pare it down to the essential contrast, and serve no more than a plate of chunked watermelon, sprinkled with feta and mint and spritzed with lime, but this full-length version is hardly troublesome to make and once made will, I assure you, become a regular feature of your summer table.
1 small red onion
2–4 limes, depending on juiciness
1.5 kg sweet, ripe watermelon
250g feta cheese
bunch fresh flat-leaf parsley
bunch fresh mint, chopped
3–4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
100g pitted black olives
black pepper
Peel and halve the red onion and cut into very fine half-moons and put in a small bowl to steep with the lime juice, to bring out the transparent pinkness in the onions and diminish their rasp. Two limes’ worth should do it, but you can find the fruits
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