Best In Show - Arnaud's Tropical Rice Salad

Not your ordinary carry-in dish, this salad has flare! Arnaud found this recipe and brought it to Rob's birthday picnic. It was a smashing success! If there were a trophy for the most impressive carry-in dish, he deserves it!

If you're preparing this as a main dish for dinner at home with the family, like we just did last night, half of the recipe should feed four people nice generous portions.

Arnaud's Tropical Rice Salad
2 cups (350 g) basmati rice
2 cups (200 g) shrimp
3 green onion (oignon nouveau)
2 cups (150 g) bean sprouts (pousse de soja)
1 mango
1/2 cup (50 g) peanuts

1 cup (15 cl) coconut milk (unsweetened)
1 tsp (càc) cayenne pepper (piment d'espelette)
2 limes
3 branches fresh mint
Giant sea salt

Cook the rice. Cook and clean the shrimp. Slice the green onion. Dice the mango. Crush the peanuts.

Zest and juice the limes. Mix together the coconut milk with the lime juice, zest & pepper. Pour the sauce over all of the other ingredients. Toss. Chill.

Sprinkle with giant salt and mint to serve.

Food Is Art - Pomegranate Salad

"You first taste your food with your eyes"

Dress up a simple meal. Serve your drinks in stemware and serve your salad in your juice glasses. Why not? Set out the nice tablecloth you rarely use and suddenly excitement will be teeming through your veins!

Pomegranate Salad
pomegranate fruit
granny smith apples
arugula leaves (roquette)
feta
white wine vinegar
*optional foie gras

How To Prepare A Pomegranate
Slice off the end at the navel. Immerse the fruit in a bowl of water. Gently peel the tough skin off revealing the fragile fruit. Harvest the unblemished fruit jewels for your salad. Eat any nicked jewels immediately. Store unblemished fruit jewels for several days in a sealed container in the fridge.

Amazing Quinoa and Roquette Salad

Four layers make the heartiest salad you've ever had!

Start by cooking & cooling your quinoa grains, mine is a mixture of red and white quinoa. Then prepare a generous pile of young roquette salad - these aromatic leaves look like baby dandelion leaves, but they taste nutty and are often called arugula in the Americas.  Layer equal quantities of roquette, quinoa and fresh parsley, topped with cherry tomatoes cut in half. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar, et bon appetite!

Winter Party Salad

This is my favorite salad. I make it for every gathering from February straight through April.

Nothing in this recipe is by accident. The flavor pairings are beautiful, each ingredient bringing out the flavor of its neighbors in its own special way.

Winter Party Salad
1 Frisée (sweet kinky-curly green lettuce)
1 Ruby Red Grapefruit
3.5 oz (100g) Feta Cheese
Olive Oil
Raspberry Vinegar

It really is as straight forward as it looks, but there is one technique I would like to illustrate that makes all the difference. First peel the rind off of the grapefruit, then insert your thumb into the navel and gently separate the citrus segments. The fragrant pulp should be the first thing you you taste not the bitter skins. To remove the skin from the segments treat the segment like an envelope and your super-very-sharp-knife like a letter opener, slice the skin membrane without pricking the fleshy part of the fruit. Then peel the skin down and it should tear off very easily. TaDa! You have naked grapefruit segments.

Mamie's Dressing

Will The Real French Dressing Please Stand Up?
Despite what the Heinz would have you believe there exists no bright reddish-orange dressing in France. Does anyone out there know why they decided to call their ketchup based dressing French?

What I'm presenting to you is a true French dressing like Grandma used to make. Better yet, it's still the dressing choice of young people today. When I first moved to Paris I was taken aback by all the young twenty-somethings that only exclusively use a home-blend of herbs and spices. When I found out how simple it is I have never bought salad dressing again.

Some of you will recognize this as a variation called Dijon-Vinaigrette, but don't be surprised if the flavor is more subtle and refined than those of the supermarket variety pumped full of sweeteners and preservatives.

Mamie's Dressing

Three parts olive oil
One part wine vinegar
One part dijon mustard
Dash of provincial herbs (thyme, rosemary, majoram)
Fresh ground pepper corns, less than the herbs
Whisk! Voilà!

To be served immediately on salads, potatoes, carrots or to dip your fresh baked baguette in.

Unexpected Splash of Flavor - Butternut Cranberry Salad

I warned my guests that I was trying something new and they didn't have to love it. But this surprising mix of fall flavors was quite well received. I think each guest made a comment or two along the lines of "How ever did you come up with the idea of grating butternut?" and "I've never heard of shredding fresh butternut?"

The presentation is gorgeous, and I was grateful for a recipe that is so packed with vitamins! Squash is a power packed vegetable "big bang for your buck" if you will. You could probably create a lovely salad around grated butternut with a nice vinaigrette dressing and none of the sugar. But to enjoy real fresh cranberries you need a minimum of sweetness to overcome their natural (and need I say overwhelming) tartness. I'm only making a big deal about this because I would like to include this salad in my best choices category. A little bit of sugar is not going to ruin a healthy diet. Most days I would rather have my sugar in a salad than in a dessert.

Butternut Cranberry Salad

1/2 butternut squash (about 1 1/2 pounds), peeled and seeded
1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries, picked over and rinsed
1/2 cup orange marmalade
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
3 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon minced ginger
Salt
Black pepper

Grate the Butternut squash in the food processor. Transfer to a large glass bowl.

Heat the cranberries in a saucepan, just until some of the berries start to break. I cooked mine way too long and ended up with purple paste instead of juice and soft berries like you want. Fortunately I had some extra berries that I could heat up real quick and add to the "berry paste" and it worked out great. It really doesn't take long at all.

Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the rest of the ingredients until the sauce is homogeneous. Pour the warm dressing over the shredded butternut and toss lightly before serving.

Tradition Keeper - Caramelized Pear, Endive and Radicchio Salad, Walnut-Ice Wine Vinegar Dressing with Blue Cheese Fritters

I'm a softie for traditions. I just love keeping old traditions and enveloping myself in all the fond memories that they represent. But for me traditions should never be static. Every year I want to recreate Mom's stuffing and Gramie's buns, but I also love to add a new recipe every year... Almost as much as I love to invite more and more people every year!

Thanksgiving eve a friend sent this recipe to my cell phone. Thanksgiving evening we prepared the salad with one major change - we simply cubed the roquefort fresh rather than batter dipping it. It's every bit as gorgeous as it sounds.

Apparently there are three different kinds of radicchio and the recipe doesn't specify which kind you need, but we noticed that three grocery stores that we visited only had one kind in stock, so the question never really came up. We bought a big head of green leafy lettuce with lots of nice red and purple leaves. Other radicchio styles will not be green at all, one looks like a white and purple cabbage and the other looks like a white and purple belgian endive. If you choose the white and purple cabbage don't get lazy and forget to grill it. Grilling removes the bitterness from the purple leaf, making it a perfect complement to the pears and endive.

Adventures in cooking...
It's hard to get a salad wrong, so if you don't have ice-wine vinegar use another kind of wine vinegar. If you don't have shallots, leave them out. I think next time I'll plan on more pear-to-salad ratio. But we like big salads so we each took two servings of salad and I had only made enough pears for one serving of pears each.

I served this salad with fois gras on toasts accompanied by a nice fig jam. It was a perfect match, festive for the holidays, also a sweet and salty combination, and it added a source of protein which helped round out the dish creating a full meal.

In my usual fashion, I've posted the shopping list first and then the preparation instructions at the end of the post. Enjoy!

Caramelized Pear, Endive and Radicchio Salad

ROASTED PEARS

3 Comice pears
Olive oil, for drizzle
Honey, for drizzle
1 tablespoon allspice
Butter, one pat

BLUE CHEESE FRITTERS

3 ounces Roquefort style blue cheese
5 ounces butter, softened
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Salt
Pepper
3 tablespoons flour
2 eggs, beaten
3 tablespoons Panko style bread crumbs
Cooking oil for deep frying (such as olive or peanut oil)

WALNUT-ICE WINE VINEGAR DRESSING

2 ounces walnuts, chopped
2 teaspoons honey
4 tablespoons ice wine vinegar
1 shallot, minced
2 tablespoons walnut oil
Salt
Pepper

ROASTED RADICCHIO AND ENDIVE SALAD

1 heads radicchio
3 belgian endives
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt
Pepper

Peel the pears, cut them in half and trim to remove the seeds. Reserve one uncooked pear to finish the salad, and roast the remaining two. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Place the two pears cut side down on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Drizzle pears with olive oil, honey and allspice and top with a small pat of butter. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 20 minutes. Set aside.

Make the blue cheese fritters. Combine cheese and butter in a mixing bowl until soft and fully incorporated. Add Worcestershire sauce and salt and pepper to taste. Form into small balls and refrigerate for 15 minutes, or until firm. Once firm, roll the balls between your palms to obtain a perfectly round shape. Dredge balls in flour, then beaten egg, then bread crumbs. The uncooked fritters can be reserved in the refrigerator until ready to fry. To fry, heat enough oil to cover the fritters in a fryer to 375 degrees. Add fritters to the pan and fry until golden brown.

Make the walnut dressing. Toast walnuts in sauté pan for five minutes. Allow to cool, then chop. In a separate bowl, combine honey and ice wine vinegar and mix well. Add minced shallot and walnut oil. Mix with chopped walnuts and salt and pepper to taste.

Wash and dry the radicchio and the belgian endives. Cut radicchio in half and drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Cook on hot grill for a couple of minutes on each side. Tear the leaves off of the belgian endive.

Assemble the salad as follows : arrange the belgian endive and radicchio on large plate. Season endive with walnut dressing and arrange around the radicchio. Top with roasted pear and freshly fried fritters. Finish with raw pear shavings.

Thank you Bruno Davaillon and the New York Times that first published this recipe November 9, 2010

What Families Are Made Of - Sweet Pepper Salad

2lb (1k) red and orange capsicum bell peppers
1 clove garlic
large pinch of coarse salt
1 tb (càs) raspberry vinegar
1/4C (6cl) olive oil
1 sweet white onion
fresh basil sprigs, leaves and flower buds

Prepare a fire in a charcoal grill or preheat a broiler oven or griller. If using a broiler or electric griller arrange the peppers on a baking sheet and line the baking sheet with aluminum foil to make clean-up easy. Place the peppers on the grill rack or under the broiler, turning several times until the skins are blistered and irregularly charred on all sides. 20-30minutes.

Place the grilled peppers on a plate and enclose the plate in a plastic bag with the open end folded beneath the plate. Let stand for 30 minutes; the steam will loosen the skins. Working over a seive over a bowl to catch the juices, pinch the skins to loosen them from the flesh and pull them off. Discard the skins and the core and the seeds. Tear each pepper into 3 or 4 sections. Set aside the bowl of juices.

Arrange the pepper sections, peeled sides up and side by side touching on a platter. In a mortar pound together the garlic, salt and pepper to form a paste. Stir in the vinegar, the reserved pepper juices and finally the olive oil.

Slice the onion in thin rings. Spoon the sauce evenly over the peppers and scatter the onion rings over the surface. Tear the basil leaves into fragments and crumble the flower buds. Scatter over the top.

Will You Be My Valentine - Rose Roast Au Jus

My honey and I were celebrating our eighth Valentine's day together, and a friend of ours who shares our passion for food decided to cuisine us a gourmet Valentine's dinner!

The roast was hand picked by our friendly neighborhood butcher. When it was brought home it wasn't refrigerated because the preparation begins with a room temperature roast, so it needed to set out for at least two hours anyhow.

Rose Roast

Preheat the oven to 450F° (230°C). Butter the roast. Quarter a white onion. In a deep oven dish bake the roast with the onion for 20 minutes at 450°F (230°C) to seer the roast, then reduce the temperature 325°F (160°C). Bake another 15 minutes per pound (.5K) Remove the roast from the oven and allow it to set 30 minutes before slicing it.

Tangy Slaw

The yogurt adds the tang, and its creamy texture takes the edge off raw red onion. The parsley complements the yogurt with bright herbal flavor.

1 medium head savoy cabbage
1 large red onion
1/2 bouquet fresh parsley
4 tablespoons (càs) plain yogurt
1 tablespoon (càs) olive oil
1 tablespoon (càs) red wine vinegar
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/2 teaspoon (càc) salt
1/2 teaspoon (càc) fresh ground black pepper

Thinly slice the cabbage and the onion, chop the parsley. Whisk the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl and toss over the veggies.