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(Take two! Sorry about the disappearance of first draft – I blame WordPress!)
A few weeks ago, when we had some pals round for dinner, I made a salad. I had planned an attempt at replication of one of the most perfect dishes I have ever eaten – a beautiful little salad I ordered as an entree in a Rome restaurant back in October (I could go on, and on, and on about that holiday but I won’t for fear of bursting into bitter tears of post-holiday-self-envy).
It was such a simple thing: a scattering of semi-roasted cherry tomatoes, a handful of tiny, sweet Ligurian olives, and a large, perfectly fresh zucchini flower – uncooked – filled with the most delicious ricotta I have ever tasted. It was one of those dishes that depends absolutely on the quality of each element, yet was so utterly simple, who wouldn’t want to try making it?
Well, things didn’t exactly to go plan for my dinner. For some reason the day came and rapidly went in a shambles of chaos and disorganization. I can’t recall what put me in such a flap that day, but it was one of those afternoons of delays, interruptions, annoying shopping glitches – I couldn’t get enough zucchini flowers for the number of people, and the flowers were nowhere near the fresh, springy, silky quality of the one I ate in that dish. And nor could I find any really good ricotta in time. And I decided to add some asparagus to make up for lack of flowers, and my Ligurian olives were boring old kalamatas. By dinnertime, I had reverted to my usual cookery approach: 1. Get all the stuff. 2. Chuck it in a bowl. 3. Stick it on the table.
The one thing I did get right was the roasting of the tomatoes – little cherry lollybombs of sharp, salty sweetness with a concentrated delicious flavour. Easy to cook, but also easy to overdo at the last minute.
Still, despite being a completely different animal from the elegant entree of my memory, the salad was really quite nice. And one of the friends present liked it so much she told me later she’d decided to make it for her family’s Christmas lunch.
Well. I happened to run into her last week, and she told me she’d given it a trial run at home from her memory of the one we had, as you do. Her bloke and daughter ate the test dish, gave her a dubious glance and said, “Well, it’s not Christmas material.”
Not Christmas Material.
Them’s fightin’ words, pal.
When I repeated this outrage to Señor and said I’d be making it again and this time writing down what I did, he said: “Is that going to be the headline? Not Christmas Material My Arse?”
So here, in the spirit of reputation reclamation and hopefully the restitution of a Perfectly Good Salad to Miz G’s Christmas table, is a recipe.
The key thing, I reckon, is to use as high quality everything as you can, and to make sure to roast the tomatoes very slowly. You can do the whole thing ahead of time and then just eat it at room temperature – or eat it warm just after cooking.
Ingredients
- assorted cherry tomatoes
- sea salt
- spray olive oil
- 2 or more bunches asparagus spears, cut into thirds or halves
- best black olives you can find – the little sweet plump Ligurian ones are perfect
- fresh zucchini flowers with tiny zucchini attached
- best quality balsamic vinegar and olive oil for dressing
- Best quality soft goat’s cheese or Persian feta
Method
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1. Halve the cherry tomatoes and arrange on baking paper, sprinkle with salt and spray with olive oil. Roast slowly for a couple of hours – I did these at 125 degrees C in a fan-assisted oven for two hours, then turned off the fan and turned down the oven to 100 degrees for another half hour.
2. Blanch the asparagus in boiling water for maximum one minute, the refresh in cold water.
3. Halve the zucchini and flowers lengthwise. Heat a little olive oil in a non-stick pan and then fry the zucchini on the flat side for a minute over moderate heat. Splash a little water into the pan, add the asparagus and cover for a minute, cooking till both zucchini & asparagus are tender.
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4. In a wide shallow bowl or platter, toss the vegetables, tomatoes and olives gently in a dressing of three parts oil to one part vinegar.
5. When it’s all mixed, dollop a few blobs of feta or goat’s cheese over the platter.
Who knows, with its red and green baubley goodness, this one might even make the grade as Christmas material for our table this year.
So what are your plans for Christmas cooking, hmm?
Last night I made this lovely couscous salad – we haven’t eaten it at home in a couple of years I think, and now I can’t imagine why. It’s very good. I remembered it because I watched Jamie Oliver’s 15-Minute Meals the other day and he made some terrific lamb rissoles with pistachio, honey & thyme, and he served it with couscous.![photo 2[2]](https://charlottewood.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/photo-22.jpg)
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How to shuck an oyster 