Nearly Summer Salad
Why nearly summer? Well, I don’t know about where you are, but where I am, it’s still cool. We even had rain a few days ago.
More importantly, as salads go, it’s still too early for luxuries like heirloom tomatoes or baby cucumbers. Instead, nearly summer salad relies on some gentle coaxing to maximize flavors.
By gentle coaxing, I mean lightly cooking produce that hasn’t yet come into its own: grilling red peppers over a gas flame, toasting croutons made from old bread, or briefly roasting cherry tomatoes in a hot oven. In short, doing whatever is necessary to make the ingredients sing.
Further examples of building flavor to create a better salad include adding a piquant element. Examples include dried, salted anchovies, black olives, or capers. I used capers, which needed draining and chopping.
Good salads offer crunch, a texture I tend to overlook in my cooking. In truth, this is due to my dental woes: I’ve lost numerous teeth, and collagen disease means implants are out. At some point I’ll get dentures, but until then, I avoid hard, chewy foods in my cooking. Which is rather silly, in this case. Nobody ever broke a tooth on a crouton.
The bread pix are terrible. Here’s some flour instead.
Mine are the work of seconds: slice good white bread or a roll thinly, paring away any crust. Dribble or lightly paint the bread with olive oil, then broil or toast it lightly. Rubbing the bread’s surfaces with a sliced garlic clove never goes amiss. You can do this before or after toasting.
My almost summer salad benefited from a handful of fresh parsley and a bit of basil, straight from our garden. Lacking decent photos of these, I give you anchovy:
A few fava beans are included in my almost summer salad, because I adore favas. If you cannot get favas, or prefer to omit them, green beans make a nice substitute.
Mozzarella cheese was in the house, intended for another recipe that never happened. Its mild, milky flavor and slightly bouncy texture work nicely in the salad, provided nobody picks it out and eats it all up atop the croutons beforehand. Not that you would. Or I did.
I dressed the almost summer salad with a simple olive oil/red wine vinagrette. We ate it with flank steak.
Nearly Summer Salad
This is less a recipe than an idea about ingredients. See notes, below, for variations.
The amounts given below fed two adults as a side salad with dinner.
Prep time: about 25 minutes
6-8 small balls fresh mozzarella cheese
1 approximately 4-5 ounce/100-125 grams good country bread/roll
1 red pepper
about 6 ounces/125 grams cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup/60 grams fava beans
1 tablespoon capers
1/4 large cucumber, peeled or not
handful fresh herbs: parsley, cilantro, basil
two handfuls fresh greens of your choice
olive oil and vinegar, for dressing
Have two salad bowls ready. You will also need a flat baking tray large enough to hold croutons. Later you’ll use the same tray to roast halved cherry tomatoes. Placing a sheet of tinfoil on the tray saves cleanup.
Lay mozzarella cheese between layers of clean dishtowel or paper towels to drain.
To make croutons, slice the crust from day-old best white or country bread or rolls. I used about 6 ounces/125 grams of a roll, slicing it thinly.
Set the bread on foil-covered oven tray and dribble olive oil over it. Shift oven shelf from uppermost slot down one. If possible, turn broiler to low setting. If your oven has only one broiler setting, use it and remove croutons when they’ve browned to your liking. Place tray on cooling rack. Or be lazy, as I was, and leave tray atop stove.
Still wearing oven mitts, move oven shelf down to middle of oven.
If you’re making cherry tomatoes, turn oven to 350F/180C.
While oven preheats, grill red pepper and slice tomatoes.
To grill the red pepper, wash if necessary, then place the pepper either over a gas burner or below your oven’s broiler element. I use my gas stove’s smallest burner to broil peppers. Please take the utmost care if you do this, rolling up long sleeves and removing any dangling bracelet charms. Open a window and turn on the oven exhaust fan. Shoo off any interested kitties or inquisitive small people. Turn the pepper with tongs or a long fork.
The pepper should be blackened and burnt on all its faces. This takes ten minutes or so. Once the pepper is fully burnt, remove it to a plate or bowl to cool. Handle carefully, as it may collapse, and the juices it leaks are delicious.
Divide the croutons between the salad bowls. Hang on to the foil-covered baking tray: you’re going to use it for the tomatoes.
Rinse tomatoes, pat dry. Halve them and place on baking tray. Salt very lightly. Scatter with olive oil, again, lightly. Place tray in oven. Bake tomatoes for about 20 minutes; set timer if necessary.
While the tomatoes bake, prepare the fava beans. First, pod them. Once they are podded, place a small pot of water on the stove. A 2 quart/liter pot, about half full is fine. Bring to low boil, then drop the favas in. Cooking time depends on their size; start tasting after two minutes. Do this by fishing one or two beans out with a slotted spoon, cooling under water, peeling (if they peel easily, it’s means they’re cooked) and tasting.
Once the beans are soft, you can either drain or save the fava water. I allow the beans to cool naturally. If you prefer, put them in a colander, run them under cool water, and strain them.
Check tomatoes. You want them just softened, barely touched with brown. Remove tomatoes from oven and allow to cool.
Returning to beans: once the beans are cool enough to handle, peel and divide them between salad bowls.
The red pepper will be cool enough to handle now, too. Peel the blackened skin off and deseed it. I do this over a bowl to try and catch the juices. As my husband isn’t fond of red pepper, I slice enough once salad and store the rest in a sealed container. Cut up pepper in whatever amounts desired and divide between salad plates. I tip the juices into my salad dish, but you can store them with leftover pepper if you wish.
Tomatoes should be cool enough now to divide between salad dishes.
The cheese should be dry now. Divide between salad plates.Tear balls in half if you like.
If using capers, rinse, pat dry, chop lightly, and divide between plates.
Slice cucumber and divide between plates.
Wash herbs and salad greens between plates. Mix ingredients lightly with two forks, salad tongs, or your clean hands.
I tend to mix dressing by eye, using a scant teaspoon vinegar to about two tablespoons olive oil in a small bow. Taste for salt and pepper, remembering salad contains salty ingredients.
Serve. Any leftover salad will be okay the next day, but croutons will wilt.
Notes:
The croutons may be made from whatever bread you have available. You can substitute breadcrumbs or leave the ingredient out entirely.
Croutons may be prepared in a toaster, toaster oven, grill pan, salamander, or regular pan. Just pay close attention so the bread doesn’t burn.
Crusts sliced from bread may be saved for soup.
No capers? Use anchovies or olives.
Substitute green beans for favas
use Ricotta Salatta or feta cheese instead of ricotta.
