Shaved Sprout Salad with Figs & Hazelnuts

We've had a spectacular summer in my part of the world, but literally like a switch going off autumn screamed in right on the 1st of March, bringing with it cool, nippy mornings, gloomy days and chillier evenings.  After a couple of weeks of decidedly autumnal weather, however, summer returned this weekend (hopefully for a few weeks to come) with clear blue skies and loads of sunshine.

Since recently moving back to Christchurch, I have of late been enjoying reacquainting myself with the local farmers market, and yesterday was the kind of day that makes it a real joy to venture out - the sun was shining, music played, all the stalls were flat out busy, and plenty of market goers were taking the opportunity to grab something to eat and enjoy "brunch" sitting in the sunshine on the river bank.

This week at I Heart Cooking Clubs, we're going green and healthy, celebrating the spirit of St Patricks Day with our current IHCC guest chef, Ellie Krieger.  I had picked up some brussels sprouts at the supermarket earlier in the week, and was thinking that Ellie's recipe for Shaved Brussels Sprout Salad with Hazelnuts and Dried Apricots from "Weeknight Wonders" seemed like a good jumping off point.  The original recipe combines thinly shaved brussels sprouts with hazelnuts and dried apricots (probably obviously enough);  however, I was really feeling the autumnal vibe and was thinking that fresh figs would be a great complement to the brussels sprouts.  I had great hopes of finding fresh figs at the farmers market, but it seems I was a bit premature - no figs around yet.

I still liked the idea of incorporating figs though, so used some nice plump dried figs that I found, and actually I liked the slightly more "chewy" quality of the dried fruit with the shaved sprouts.  Other changes I made were including a large handful of flat leaf parsley leaves ( I love to use the leaves whole like another salad green, rather than chopping them up), and because I wanted to turn this into a substantial meal for myself I also included some blue goats cheese and some beautiful big, fat, green Sicilian olives that I picked up at the farmers market.  Rock melon too have been abundant of late, and with plenty of melon on hand to be used up I thought this too would work perfectly with the sprouts and figs, and would deliver the juicy succulence that I had been hoping for in fresh figs. I also tweaked the dressing a bit really just to suit ingredients that I had on hand.

Here is my version of Ellie's salad, given its "autumn makeover".  Actually this was the first time I'd ever eaten brussels sprouts raw - won't be the last!  This salad packed plenty of great flavours, and lots of interesting textures - certainly delivers enough on both fronts to potentially get this one past even those who claim to hate sprouts.  I was very happy to make a meal out of this and would certainly make it again.  The other great thing about this salad, unlike a lettuce salad, is that it's not going to go all "wilty" on you, making this perfect to pack up and take outdoors for a picnic or barbeque.

Shaved Sprout Salad with Figs & Hazelnuts Recipe
Inspired by recipe by Ellie Krieger
from Weeknight Wonders
Serves 1 as a substantial meal or
Serves 2 as a light meal or side dish
Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

large handful of hazelnuts
8x brussels sprouts, washed and outer leaves removed
large handful flat leaf parsley leaves
3x plump dried figs, cut into thin strips
1/4 of a rock melon, skin and seeds removed and cut into cubes
large handful of Sicilian olives
approx 75g (2.5 oz) blue cheese, crumbled

dressing:
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon honey
1/2 teaspoon wholegrain mustard
flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

Place hazelnuts in a small dry frying pan, set over medium heat and toast, tosssing from time to time, until the nuts are golden brown.  Remove pan from the heat, tip the nuts out onto a clean tea towel, wrap them up and rub vigorously to loosen the skins.  Set nuts aside to cool.

Meanwhile, cut the sprouts in half lengthwise, remove the hard "core", and then with a very sharp knife cut them crosswise very thinly.  Place the shave sprouts in a bowl along with the parley leaves, dried figs, cubed rock melon, crumbled blue cheese, green olives, and roughly chopped hazelnuts.

To make the dressing, place all ingredients into a small jug or bowl and whisk until well combined.  Pour over salad ingredients and toss until everything is just coated with the dressing.

Serve and enjoy.

Note:  As with so many of my recipes you don't need to be too fussy about quantities here, or even use all of these ingredients - just follow your instincts and your taste buds to come up with your own creation

For example try using:
broccoli instead of brussels sprouts
feta instead of blue cheese
cranberries instead of dried figs
orange or pink grapefruit instead of rock melon
almonds instead of hazelnuts
The possibilities are limitless - just use your imagination

If you would like to get to know Ellie Krieger a little better, and to see all the wonderful "Green Eating" dishes my friends have come up with, then do go visit I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links.

I'll also be sharing this post this week at Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammies) Sundays hosted by my lovely friend Deb at Kahakai Kitchen, and at Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth Fish Reads.

   

Crunchy Chicken Noodle Salad with Peanut Dressing

Like many of you I'm sure, I like to travel.  That said, I don't think I'm much of a tourist.  I usually don't have too much interest in popular tourist attractions, preferring instead (wherever I maybe) to search out the local food markets and making interesting food discoveries.  Returning from an overseas trip you are more likely to find my suitcase weighed down with jars of olive oil, tins of anchovies, or slabs of nougat, than bulging at the seams with souvenirs and clothes.  Case in point, I recently returned from a trip to Bali with blocks of peanut sate sauce and 50 beautiful vanilla beans.   Whilst on my stay in Bali I did a couple of great cooking classes (my other favourite thing to do when I'm travelling anywhere), and whilst we learnt how to make the delicious peanut sauce that you frequently finding accompany sate sticks or used in Gado Gado (an Indonesian salad of assorted steamed vegetables, often served with tofu and eggs, and liberally doused in peanut sauce), it turns out that most of the locals don't actually bother making their own peanut sauce, but use the concentrated blocks of it.  It keeps really well, is easy to use - simply break off a large chunk and dissolve in boiling water - and tastes every bit as good as making your own.

So now I have a stash of peanut sauce blocks, and I've been looking for different and interesting ways to use it.  Inspiration this week came from Erin at The Spiffy Cookie.  Erin's blog was my Secret Recipe Club assignment this month and her Crunchy Thai Chicken Salad with Peanut Dressing was the perfect dish to not only use up some leftover roast chicken, but to also provide a home for some of my peanut sauce.

But before I move onto the recipe, let me tell you a little bit more about Erin and the Secret Recipe Club.   The club has over a hundred members, divided into four groups, and each month one member is assigned (in secret) to another member from their group.  That person then selects a recipe (or more) to make, photograph, and prepare a blog post - all in secret.  Then everyone in the group posts their recipe on the same day, and of course the secret is then out.  It's always a thrill to find out who has posted something from your own blog, and is a great way to meet and discover some new blogs.   If you are a food blogger and interested in joining the Secret Recipe Club, be sure to check out the Join SRC page.   As I mentioned this month I was assigned to The Spiffy Cookie, hosted by Erin, who has a PhD in Microbiology - yep, this girl is really smart - and loves to cook and bake for her family and friends.  She tries to stick to the healthier side of things foodwise, but admits that her favourite "food group" is dessert.  Erin also likes to keep herself fit with a regular work out regime, and to get crafty painting on canvas as well as ceramics.  She is a very prolific blogger, and so offered literally hundreds of recipes to choose from, and I've bookmarked a few to try at a later date:  Peanut Butter & Chocolate French Toast (yes, really!), Dark Cherry Chocolate Almond Granola Bars (what better way to start the day?), Gnocchetti with Asparagus & Garlic-Gorgonzola Sauce (it being asparagus season here, this one was a serious front runner), but it was the Crunchy Thai Chicken Salad with Peanut Dressing that ticked all the boxes for me.

I varied some of the ingredients in the salad a little simply to suit what I had on hand or was readily available - for example, Erin used radicchio in her salad which was not available, so I added some baby spinach leaves in with the lettuce, and used some purple carrots for the colour.  I also subbed in some rocket leaves (arugula) for the coriander (cilantro) which I couldn't get, and replaced peanuts with cashew nuts because that's what I had on hand.  I'm also giving you here Erin's recipe for the peanut dressing, though I did (as I mentioned) sub in some of my Balinese peanut sauce.  In terms of the actual salad ingredients here, I don't think you need to be too fussy with quantities here - use what you have in whatever proportions you like and depending on how many people you need to feed.

Crunchy Chicken Noodle Salad with Peanut Dressing
Adapted slightly from this recipe
at The Spiffy Cookie

salad
cos lettuce
baby spinach leaves
orange carrot, very finely julienned
purple carrot, very finely julienned
red pepper, very finely sliced
cooked chicken, shredded
rocket leaves, roughly torn
roasted, unsalted cashew nuts
crispy noodles

dressing
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons soy sauce
juice of 1 lime
1/8 teaspoon sriracha or hot sauce
hot water

Begin by making the dressing.  Whisk together peanut butter, honey, soy sauce, lime juice and sriracha in a medium bowl.  Slowly whisk in hot water until you reach the consistency you want.  Set aside.

Assemble all your salad ingredients, except the cashew nuts and noodles, in a large bowl.  Toss together well, then arrange on a serving platter, or in individual bowls.  Drizzle the dressing over the salad liberally, and top with the nuts and noodles.

Serve immediately.

I hope you enjoy this dish as much as I did, and visit the links below to check out all the other great dishes my Secret Recipe Club friends made.

An InLinkz Link-up

Autumnal Farro, Fig & Blue Cheese Salad

Over the last few weeks, I've missed out on a bit of our culinary journey with Diana Henry over at I Heart Cooking Clubs, but I felt I couldn't miss the opportunity to join in this week as we bid our fond farewells to Diana.  She is definitely an inspirational cook and I have loved cooking from her culinary tomes in which I have invested - A Change of Appetite and Salt Sugar Smoke.  I love a cookbook which is as much a joy to sit down and read as it is to cook from, and I have certainly found that in both of these volumes.  Sitting down with one of Diana's cookbooks to have a read and find a little dinner inspiration is like sitting down with a good friend, and I know that I will continue to enjoy her company in my kitchen.

Right now my neighbour's fig tree is literally groaning under the weight of its ripening crop, and it's a constant vigil to get to the fruit at just the right time before the birds do.  Must be the spectacular summer that we've had in my part of the world this year, but the fruit seems to be bigger, fatter, sweeter and juicier than ever before, and I knew that my farewell dish to Diana would have to include this much coveted autumn treat.

Inspiration came from Diana's recipe in A Change of Appetite for her salad of farro, hazelnuts, grapes and figs.  I changed things up a little bit to use ingredients I had on hand, but I think the spirit of this dish remains the same.  I tweaked the dressing a bit using red wine vinegar instead of white balsamic vinegar, leaving out hazelnut oil because I didn't have any, and adding in a bit of pomegranate molasses because ... well, just because.  I swapped out red chicory and watercress in favour of baby kale leaves which I had on hand;  I used roasted almonds instead of hazelnuts, blue cheese instead of goat cheese, and plump golden raisins instead of grapes.  I also pan roasted the figs in honey before adding them to the salad.

This salad is the ultimate ode to autumn on a plate.  The nutty flavour and texture of the farro is the perfect foil to the soft, sweet figs, the tangy dressing, the crunch of the almonds, and the salty hits of the blue cheese.  This was easily satisfying enough for me to make a meal out of it all on its own, but would also make a great accompaniment to perhaps a roasted chicken or some great sausages.

A glass of shiraz or a great pinot on the side, and you have a meal made in heaven.  I hope you'll give it a try.

Autumnal Fig, Farro & Blue Cheese Salad Recipe
Adapted from recipe by Diana Henry
from A Change of Appetite
Serves 2 as a generous meal or 4 as a side dish
Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

1x cup farro
juice of 1/2 lemon
extra virgin olive oil
flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
baby kale leaves
generous handful roasted almonds
generous handful plump golden raisins, soaked in boiling water for 5 minutes
3-4 plump, fresh figs
1 tablespoon honey
50g blue cheese, crumbled

Dressing
3x tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1x tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon pomegranate molasses
flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

Put farro in a saucepan, cover with water and bring to the boil.  Reduce heat and simmer the farro until tender but still with a little bite - about 20 to 25 minutes.  Remove from heat, drain well and add lemon juice, 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, and season liberally with flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Set aside to cool to room temperature.

Meanwhile make the dressing.  Place all ingredients in a small jar and shake vigorously until everything is well combined.  Taste and adjust flavourings to your taste.  Set aside.

Cut figs in half.  Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a small saute pan and add the tablespoon of honey.  Add the figs to the pan, cut side down, and allow the figs to soften and warm through in the pan.  Remove from pan, cool slightly, and cut each half in half again if figs are large.

Now that the farro has cooled, taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary.  Add the kale leaves, almonds and plumped-up raisins to the farro, and toss to combine.

Arrange farro mixture on a serving platter, nestle fig pieces into the mixture, and strew nuggets of the blue cheese over the top.  Serve immediately.

If you would like to get to know Diana Henry a little better, and to see what everyone else has cooked up this week, then do go and visit my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links (who knows, you might even want to join the journey and cook along with us) ...

... or check out A Change of Appetite and Diana's many other great titles available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, or Fishpond NZ.

And make sure to come back next week as we begin a new six month culinary journey of cooking with French chef Jacques Pepin.

I'm also sharing this at Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammie) Sundays, hosted by my very lovely friend Deb at Kahakai Kitchen.

Three of the Best - Salad Days # 9, 10 & 11

Out there in blogland I often hear some of you talk about dishes in your "regular rotation", but I seriously don't have any kind of regular rotation going on in my household.  I sometimes think it might make life a little bit easier if I did, but I just don't.  Truth is, even though I often say things like "this was so great, I'll definitely be making this again" - I usually don't.  I get seduced by some new idea and seldom make the same thing twice.

That said, there is a small selection of salads in my repertoire that I really have made several times because they were that good, and so I thought that it bears reintroducing them to you.

Roasted Eggplant, Mango & Soba Noodle Salad

This is a salad, unsurprisingly, from my food hero - Yotam Ottolenghi - and with mangoes (albeit imported ones) and eggplant being in abundance right now, this is a great time for this salad.  Because we don't grow mangoes in New Zealand, they are one of the few imported items in the fruit and veggie department in which I allow myself to indulge over summer, and I really make a feast of it.  Lush, juicy mangoes alongside smokey, roasted aubergines is not a combination I would have ever thought of, but it really works.

Green Tea Soba Noodles with Soy Roasted Salmon & Broad Bean-Radish Salad

Adapted from a recipe by Donna Hay, this is probably one of my favourite dishes I've posted of all time, and one I really have repeated numerous times.  Try this once, and I'm sure it will become one of your regulars too.  A visually stunning dish, packed with great punch of flavour from the wasabi-ginger dressing, and yet quick and easy to prepare.  This is the perfect maximum impact - minimum effort dish.

Baby Spinach Salad with Dates & Almonds

When we had our time over at I Heart Cooking Clubs cooking with Ottolenghi, this was one of my favourite dishes I made.  I know several of my fellow participants, and several of my friends in the Tasting Jerusalem group also loved, so don't just take my word for it - this is a salad you definitely need to have in your "rotation".

This is salad numbers 9, 10, and 11 in my Salad Days, 28 days of salad project.   What's that you ask?  Well,  I've said it here a dozen times or more ... I love salads.  A big bowl, substantial salad is hands down my favourite meal any time of the year.  Such is my love of salad, that I'm challenging myself to come up with a different salad every day for the month of February - that's 28 days of salads - and I plan to share as many of them as I can with you.  I'll also be doing some flashbacks to some of my favourite salads I've shared in the past.

What's more, I'm giving you the opportunity to share some of your favourite salads with me too.  Have a favourite salad you'd like to share?  Simply link up your salad recipe using the linky tool at the bottom of this post.  The linky will be open all month, and you can join in any day or every day, and link as many recipes as you like.  Feel free to grab the Salad Days badge from the sidebar to include in your post if you'd like to.  There's really no rules around linking up, other than please, use your manners and link your post back to this one.  Linking old posts is fine too, just please edit them to include the back link.  Thanks for sharing your favourite salad with us.

Burmese Chilli Prawns with Hot & Sour Asian Slaw - Salad Days # 8

This week at I Heart Cooking Clubs we're exploring the theme "East Meets West", choosing Diana Henry fusion dishes with a global influence.

Living here in New Zealand, I'm no stranger to fusion food - I'm sure the same can be said for most of my "neighbours" on the Pacific Rim.  It has always fascinated me, in just about any country, the influence that its immigrants has on the local food culture.  When I was growing up, Chicken Chop Suey at the local Chinese restaurant was about as exotic as it got.  In the last 20 years, however, increasing numbers of Asian immigrants has had a huge influence on the New Zealand culinary landscape.  Previously unheard of ingredients are now readily available;  Thai, Vietnamese, Indian, Malaysian, Burmese, Bangladeshi, and Indonesian restaurants abound;  and even the pantries of this nation's most unadventurous cooks would boast a bottle of soy sauce at the very least.

Looking through Diana Henry'd book A Change of Appetite, I thought her Burmese Chilli Fish with Hot & Sour Salad was the perfect dish to fit the brief.  The hot and sour salad, which is essentially an Asian take on a classic cole slaw seemed like the epitome of fusion food to me.  I made quite a few changes to the recipe ... For a start I replaced the fish with prawns, and tweaked the curry paste a little.  And I rang a few changes to the salad as well - adding in some red cabbage along with the white, and adding carrot, green papaya, cherry tomatoes, mint and peanuts to the slaw, and as I did with the curry paste I tweaked the dressing a bit.

This dish definitely had the wow factor - an absolute explosion of flavours and textures, and just enough heat to leave my lips tingling at the end of it ... in a good way.  If you like Asian flavours, I urge you to give this a try the next time you have cole slaw on your mind.

Burmese Chilli Prawns with Hot & Sour Asian Slaw Recipe
Inspired by recipe from Diana Henry
from A Change of Appetite
Serves 2 as a substantial meal

For the Burmese Chilli Prawns:
300g raw prawns, shells removed and deveined
1x clove garlic, roughly chopped
generous pinch of salt
piece of fresh ginger about the size of your thumb, grated
1/2 red chilli, roughly chopped (deseed if you like less heat)
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon lime juice

For the Hot & Sour Asian Slaw:
1x cup finely shredded white cabbage
1x cup finely shredded red cabbage (plus extra leaves for serving)
1x carrot finely shredded (a julienne peeler is ideal)
1x cup finely shredded green papaya
2x radishes, thinly sliced (a mandoline works perfectly if you have one)
12x cherry tomatoes, halved (use different colours if you can)
generous handful of mint leaves, roughly chopped
large handful of roasted peanuts, roughly chopped
1/2 red chilli, roughly chopped (deseed if you like less heat)

For the dressing:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 teaspoon lime juice

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F).

Place garlic, salt, ginger, chilli, turmeric, olive oil, sesame oil and lime juice in a mortar and pestle, and grind to a paste.  Add paste to the prawns, and toss until all the prawns are well coated in the paste.  Put prawns in a single layer in an ovenproof dish, and bake in the preheated oven until cooked through - depending on the size of your prawns this will take between 5 and 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, place the dressing ingredients in a small jar and shake vigorously until well combined.  Taste and then adjust to your liking - you want a good balance of sweet-sour-salty, so play around with the ingredients until you get the flavour just right.

Place all the slaw ingredients in a large bowl, drizzle liberally with the dressing, and toss gently until everything is well combined.

Serve immediately piled into red cabbage leaves, and arrange prawns on the side.

If you would like to get to know Diana Henry a little better, and to see what everyone else has cooked up this week, then do go and visit my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links (who knows, you might even want to join the journey and cook along with us) ...

... or check out A Change of Appetite and Diana's many other great titles available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, or Fishpond NZ.

I'm also sharing this at Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammie) Sundays, hosted by my very lovely friend Deb at Kahakai Kitchen, and at Weekend Cooking, hosted by the lovely Beth at Beth Fish Reads.

This is salad number 8 in my Salad Days, 28 days of salad project.   What's that you ask?  Well,  I've said it here a dozen times or more ... I love salads.  A big bowl, substantial salad is hands down my favourite meal any time of the year.  Such is my love of salad, that I'm challenging myself to come up with a different salad every day for the month of February - that's 28 days of salads - and I plan to share as many of them as I can with you.  I'll also be doing some flashbacks to some of my favourite salads I've shared in the past.

What's more, I'm giving you the opportunity to share some of your favourite salads with me too.  Have a favourite salad you'd like to share?  Simply link up your salad recipe using the linky tool at the bottom of this post.  The linky will be open all month, and you can join in any day or every day, and link as many recipes as you like.  Feel free to grab the Salad Days badge from the sidebar to include in your post if you'd like to.  There's really no rules around linking up, other than please, use your manners and link your post back to this one.  Linking old posts is fine too, just please edit them to include the back link.  Thanks for sharing your favourite salad with us.

Salad of Seafood with Tomatoes & Roasted Lemons - Salad Days # 7

Yesterday was my birthday, and of course a birthday calls for celebration food.  Staying with my salad theme this month, I had been thinking along the lines of perhaps a duck and crispy noodle salad.  But then, my lovely friend Martine, who knows me so well, gave me a couple of crayfish tails.  If you're a seafood lover, you will know that few birthday gifts can rate as highly as crayfish tails!

I already had some scallops on hand and some prawns, so there was no doubt there was a substantial seafood salad in the making.

The crayfish and prawns were lightly poached until just cooked through - take care not to overcook them - and the scallops sauteed in a little olive oil.

Further inspiration came from this recipe from my food hero, Yotam Ottolenghi.  I just couldn't go past those roasted lemons.  One or two lemons (depending on how many people you are serving) are sliced wafer thin and blanched in boiling water for a couple of minutes.  After draining the lemons, toss them gently with a little olive oil, generous sprinkling of flaky sea salt, drizzle of honey, and a generous handful of fresh oregano leaves, finely chopped.  Spread the lemons in a single layer on a lined baking tray, and roast in an oven preheated to 160 degrees C (325 degrees F) until starting to char.

Remove lemons from the oven and toss with chopped tomatoes (use as much variety of colours and sizes as you can) and avocado.  Drizzle over a little extra virgin olive oil, some roughly chopped flat leaf parsley, and a generous sprinkling of sumac.  Toss gently to combine everything.

Add seafood to the bowl, and once again toss gently to mix everything together.  Arrange on a serving platter and serve immediately.

I finished everything off with a drizzle of this Preserved Lemon Dressing.

The creamy avocados, tangy bite of the tomatoes, and caramelised lemons, along with the citrus tang of the sumac and the preserved lemon dressing compliment the sweet, delicate seafood beautifully without overpowering it.  This was definitely a dish fit for a special occasion - thanks, Martine xo

This is salad number 7 in my Salad Days, 28 days of salad project.   What's that you ask?  Well,  I've said it here a dozen times or more ... I love salads.  A big bowl, substantial salad is hands down my favourite meal any time of the year.  Such is my love of salad, that I'm challenging myself to come up with a different salad every day for the month of February - that's 28 days of salads - and I plan to share as many of them as I can with you.  I'll also be doing some flashbacks to some of my favourite salads I've shared in the past.

What's more, I'm giving you the opportunity to share some of your favourite salads with me too.  Have a favourite salad you'd like to share?  Simply link up your salad recipe using the linky tool at the bottom of this post.  The linky will be open all month, and you can join in any day or every day, and link as many recipes as you like.  Feel free to grab the Salad Days badge from the sidebar to include in your post if you'd like to.  There's really no rules around linking up, other than please, use your manners and link your post back to this one.  Linking old posts is fine too, just please edit them to include the back link.  Thanks for sharing your favourite salad with us.

Tandoori Mushroom Salad with Spinach, Almonds & Fried Egg - Salad Days # 3

I've been addicted to tandoori roasted mushrooms ever since I tried them one night at the Indian Cafe.  Fortunately, they are quick and easy to make at home, especially if you always keep a jar of tandoori paste in the fridge as I do.  As you know, I'm a great believer in making as much as I can from scratch, and there is very little I buy at all in the way of processed foods.  That said, I'm not super woman, and I've long since discovered that a few sachets or jars of a variety of curry pastes in the pantry can be just the thing to transform a few humble vegetables into something fabulous when you want a quick and easy mid-week meal.

So tandoori mushrooms make a regular appearance around here for a quick and easy vegetable side.  I simply mix together equal quantities of yoghurt and tandoori paste (usually about 1/4 cup of each) to make a marinade, toss the mushrooms in the marinade and leave them to develop the flavour for at least an hour.  Finally the mushrooms are removed from the marinade and roasted in a hot oven until tender and slightly charred.

Often as I've made these mushrooms though, I'd never thought to turn them into a salad until I flicked on the TV one night just in time to see Anjum Anand serving up a tandoori mushroom salad.  Unfortunately, I was too late to get the recipe, I only saw what she put on the plate, so this is my version of how I think this dish might go.

I love the spicy, yet slightly lemony, zing of the tandoori flavour, which develops a kind of smokiness when roasted, the earthiness of the mushrooms and spinach, the velvety softness of the spinach leaves against the crunch of the almonds, and finally the oozy, runny egg yolk which combines with the mushroom juices and olive oil to make a rich, glorious dressing.

This salad is great to serve as a meal on its own, and is hearty enough for a cool, winter's evening.

Tandoori Mushroom Salad with Spinach, Almonds & Fried Egg Recipe
Inspired by a dish by Anjum Anand
Click here for a printed copy of this recipe

For each person allow:
4x large mushrooms
generous handful or two of baby spinach leaves, roughly torn
generous handful of roasted, unsalted almonds, roughly chopped
1x egg, fried

To marinate the mushrooms (this will be enough for 6-8 mushrooms, depending on size):
1/3 cup tandoori paste
1/3 cup natural yoghurt

To dress the salad:
juice of 1/2 lemon
extra virgin olive oil
flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 220 degrees C (425 degrees F).

Mix together the tandoori paste and yoghurt in a medium bowl.  Add mushrooms to the bowl, and toss to make sure they are all well coated with the marinade.  Set aside for the flavour to infuse for at least an hour.  Place mushrooms in a single layer in an ovenproof dish, and roast in the preheated oven until the mushrooms are tender and slightly blackened around the edges.

Remove mushrooms from the oven and arrange on a serving platter.   Arrange spinach leaves amongst the mushrooms, and sprinkle almonds over the top.  Drizzle over lemon juice and olive oil.  Nestle fried egg on top, and season liberally with flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper.

Serve immediately.  Dig your fork into that runny egg yolk and enjoy!

This is salad number 3 in my Salad Days, 28 days of salad project.   What's that you ask?  Well,  I've said it here a dozen times or more ... I love salads.  A big bowl, substantial salad is hands down my favourite meal any time of the year.  Such is my love of salad, that I'm challenging myself to come up with a different salad every day for the month of February - that's 28 days of salads - and I plan to share as many of them as I can with you.  I'll also be doing some flashbacks to some of my favourite salads I've shared in the past.

What's more, I'm giving you the opportunity to share some of your favourite salads with me too.  Have a favourite salad you'd like to share?  Simply link up your salad recipe using the linky tool at the bottom of this post.  The linky will be open all month, and you can join in any day or every day, and link as many recipes as you like.  Feel free to grab the Salad Days badge from the sidebar to include in your post if you'd like to.  There's really no rules around linking up, other than please, use your manners and link your post back to this one.  Linking old posts is fine too, just please edit them to include the back link.  Thanks for sharing your favourite salad with us.

Paprika Roasted Prawns with Tomato Nectarine Salad - Salad Days # 2

This is one of my favourite summer salads - it's fresh and vibrant, and has great texture.  There have been numerous versions around of the nectarine and tomato salad - with good reason.  They are surprisingly good together - the sweet, juicy nectarines are a perfect foil to the more acid-sweetness of the tomatoes.  It makes a great side salad to just about anything, but I like to amp things up a bit by adding some peppery salad leaves and some paprika roasted prawns to make a complete meal.

Now before I share the recipe, I want to talk a bit more about salads in general.  I've said it here a dozen times or more ... I love salads.  A big bowl, substantial salad is hands down my favourite meal any time of the year.  Such is my love of salad, that I'm challenging myself to come up with a different salad every day for the month of February - that's 28 days of salads - and I plan to share as many of them as I can with you.  I'll also be doing some flashbacks to some of my favourite salads I've shared in the past.

What's more, I'm giving you the opportunity to share some of your favourite salads with me too.  Have a favourite salad you'd like to share?  Simply link up your salad recipe using the linky tool at the bottom of this post.  The linky will be open all month, and you can join in any day or every day, and link as many recipes as you like.  Feel free to grab the Salad Days badge from the sidebar to include in your post if you'd like to.  There's really no rules around linking up, other than please, use your manners and link your post back to this one.  Linking old posts is fine too, just please edit them to include the back link.

I always find that thinking about salads sparks the most creativity in me around food, and I thought I would share with you some of my suggestions for creating a great salad of your own.

Salads are not just summer fare.  I like a salad which is substantial enough to constitute a meal in its own right, and this can be surprisingly easy to achieve in winter when all sorts of root vegetables are in season.  So what are my salad rules?

Firstly, a good salad should ideally, in my opinion, contain some form of protein.  This could come in the form of:

• Cheese - grilled haloumi, feta, blue cheese, brie, soft goats-milk cheeses, bocconcini or mozzarella are all great in salads
• Poultry - try chicken, duck or quail
• Fish and seafood - salmon, smoked white fish, prawns, lobster, crab, squid, mussels are all wonderful additions to any salad
• Meat - personally I don't use much meat in my salads other than perhaps some chorizo sausage or some crispy prosciutto or pancetta, but you could certainly experiment with the inclusion of some rare lamb or beef
• Nuts and seeds - I like cashews, pecans, walnuts, pine nuts, hazelnuts, almonds, pistachios, peanuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds
• Pulses & legumes - try chickpeas, lentils, cannellini beans, lima beans, borlotti beans
• And yes, if you must, tofu - I have to say it definitely wouldn't find its way into any salad of mine, but it would certainly be a good inclusion for those whose gastronomic ethos doesn't extend to the consumption of various other forms of protein and, apparently, some people even like it.

Secondly, I like a grain of some sort - noodles, pasta, rice, quinoa, couscous, croutons are a few suggestions. It is useful to know, if your diet doesn't include any animal products, that pulses combined with grains form a complete protein.

Thirdly, a great meal in a salad should have great texture and colour - consider the inclusion of some fruit (fresh or dried) and fresh herbs (mint, coriander, flat-leaf parsley, basil, tarragon are all wonderful in salads).

And lastly, your salad should have a great dressing which pulls the whole meal together - it's the dressing which really balances out all the ingredients you have chosen for your salad and creates beautiful layers of flavour.

Above all, don't be afraid to experiment and come up with your own wonderful creations. Like all experimenting in the kitchen, not everything will be a success, but along the way you will learn a great deal about flavours and textures that work well together, and you will without doubt get many pleasant surprises.

Paprika Roasted Prawns with Tomato Nectarine Salad Recipe
Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

No need to follow quantities too literally here - use your instincts, and this can easily be multiplied to feed any number of people

For each person allow:
100g-150g (3-1/2 to 5 oz) raw prawns
1x large, ripe nectarine, stone removed and cut into wedges
6-8 cherry tomatoes, halved, use a variety of colours if you can get them
large handful of peppery salad leaves such as rocket and mizuna
handful of flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped

To flavour the prawns:
1-2 teaspoons smoky paprika (depending on your tastes)
1-2 tablespoons olive oil (or more, depending on the quantity of prawns you are cooking)
flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

Dressing (this will probably make enough for two generous servings):
1 tablespoon white balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon maple syrup
flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F).

Meanwhile make the dressing - place all the ingredients in a small jar, cover, and shake until everything is well combined.  Taste and adjust seasonings to your liking.  Set aside.

In a small bowl mix together the paprika, olive oil, flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Toss the prawns in the bowl until they are all well coated, then place prawns in a single layer in an ovenproof dish.  Place dish in the oven and roast until the prawns are just cooked through.  This will only take about 5 minutes so keep an eye on them.

Place the nectarines, cherry tomatoes, and half the parsley in a bowl, pour over half of the dressing, and toss to combine everything well.  Leave to stand while the prawns are cooking to allow the juices from the nectarines and cherry tomatoes to "meld" with the dressing.

Arrange salad greens on a serving platter, and nestle the nectarines and tomatoes (with their dressing) in amongst the leaves.  Arrange the cooked prawns over the top, drizzle with the remaining dressing, and finish with a sprinkling of the remaining parsley.

Serve immediately.

What's your favourite salad?  I'd love you to tell me about ... better yet, why not share it.

Sicilian Artichoke & Broad Bean Salad with Saffron Dressing - Salad Days # 1

This week at I Heart Cooking Clubs our theme is Veggie Variations - our mission to choose any one of Diana Henry's meat-free, veggie filled dishes, of which I can tell you she has many.  I've had her Sicilian Artichoke & Broad Bean Salad with Saffron Dressing recipe, from A Change of Appetite, bookmarked for ages and, since artichokes and broad beans are two of my favourite vegetables, this seemed like the perfect time to make it.

The fact that this "veggieccentric" meal (though I did sneak in some anchovies) is also a salad, that salad of any description just happens to be my favourite meal of any kind, that it offered a riot of colour on a grey and gloomy day, and that it delivered a sublime combination of flavours and textures (which is always the benchmark of a great dish for me), meant that this dish ticked every conceivable box for me.

In fact, I love salad so much that I've decided that I am going to make a different salad (and I'll try to post as many of them as I can) every day for the whole month of February - that's 28 days of salad.  I'm pretty excited about that, and because there can never be too many salads, I'm also giving you the opportunity to share some salads of your own.  I'll be posting more details tomorrow and I'll also be putting up a linky which will stay open for the whole month, so if you have a salad that you'd like to share (on any day or every day) feel free to join in.

Now back to the salad at hand.  This was everything I dreamed it was going to be.  The saffron plays a lovely earthy background note to the sweetness of the honey and orange in the dressing, and its flavour infuses the artichokes beautifully.  The textures of the artichoke and broad beans, provide a great base to the little flavour explosions that come from the oranges and raisins, chilli, capers and anchovies.  No two mouthfuls are the same.  The orange was my own addition to things here, as were the capers and anchovies, but they are the very first things that come to mind when I think of Sicily so in they went.  I left out mint and pine nuts because I didn't have them on hand, and honestly I didn't miss them, but all manner of herbs and nuts would be great add-ins.

I ate the whole thing on my own as a substantial meal, though you could probably stretch it to feed a couple of people for a lighter meal such as lunch.  Of course, this would also be great as an accompaniment to a larger meal, especially something that would sit comfortably with big bold flavours;  personally, I found it didn't need anything more than a good pinot noir.

Sicilian Artichoke & Broad Bean Salad with Saffron Dressing Recipe
Adapted from recipe by Diana Henry
from A Change of Appetite
Serves 1 as a substantial main meal or
Serves 2 as a light lunch or
Serves 4 as an accompaniment to a larger meal
Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

juice of 1/2 a lemon
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
generous pinch of saffron stamens
1 teaspoon runny honey
flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
3 to 5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
zest and juice of half an orange

generous handful of raisins
1 cup frozen broad beans
6x large artichoke hearts, bottled or canned
olive oil
1x garlic clove, roughly chopped
1x green chilli, finely sliced, deseeded if you prefer
generous handful of capers
6x anchovies, roughly chopped
zest and segments of fruit from the other half of the orange

Put lemon juice, red wine vinegar and saffron threads into a very small saucepan, and heat gently until the saffron begins to release its colour and fragrance.  Remove from the heat and cool slightly.  Pour into a small jug and whisk in the honey, salt, pepper, orange juice and zest, then whisking constantly slowly drizzle in the extra virgin oil until you reach a nicely emulsified dressing consistency.  Taste and adjust to your liking.  This should have a good balance of sweet and savoury.

Cut artichoke hearts into quarters, place them in a bowl and pour over the dressing.  Set aside for at least an hour if you can manage it for the flavours to infuse.

Put raisins in a small bowl, and cover with boiling water.  Set aside for about 30 minutes until the raisins have plumped up.

Put frozen broad beans into another small bowl, and cover them too with boiling water.  Leave to stand for 5 minutes, drain, then remove and discard the tough greyish skins.

Heat a slosh of olive oil in a small saute pan over medium heat.  Add the garlic, chilli, and capers to the pan, and saute until fragrant and the capers are slightly crispy.

Arrange artichoke hearts on a serving platter.  Scatter around the broad beans, raisins, orange segments and anchovies.  Sprinkle over the sauteed garlic, chilli and capers.  Drizzle liberally with the dressing from the artichokes, and finish with a final sprinkling of grated orange zest.

If you would like to get to know Diana Henry a little better, and to see what everyone else has cooked up this week, then do go and visit my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links (who knows, you might even want to join the journey and cook along with us) ...

... or check out A Change of Appetite and Diana's many other great titles available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, or Fishpond NZ.

I'm also sharing this at Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammie) Sundays, hosted by my very lovely friend Deb at Kahakai Kitchen, and at Weekend Cooking, hosted by the lovely Beth at Beth Fish Reads.

Jerk Salmon Salad with Spicy Pineapple Dressing

It's been a little while since I shared a Secret Recipe Club (**) post with you.  We've been on a brief hiatus over Christmas, but I'm excited that my group is back to posting this week.

*  So what's this Secret Recipe Club you may ask?  The club has over a hundred members, divided into four groups, and each month one member is assigned (in secret) to another member from their group.  That person then selects a recipe (or more) to make, photograph, and prepare a blog post - all in secret.  Then everyone in the group posts their recipe on the same day, and of course the secret is then out.  It's a always a thrill to find out who has posted something from your own blog, and to meet and discover some new blogs.   If you are a food blogger and interested in joining the Secret Recipe Club, be sure to check out the Join SRC page.

Because we've been on a bit of a break, I've had an extra long time to explore and get to know my assigned blog, which this month is Sew You Think You Can Cook, hosted by Lauren who lives in Ohio with her husband and son.  Lauren is an aerospace engineer, and hopes to one day realise her food dream and become a caterer.  As well as her obvious passion for food and blogging, Lauren also loves quilting and cross stitching, which is evident in the quilt-block tutorials you will find on her blog along with all her great recipes.

There were several recipes from Lauren's blog I bookmarked to try:  Cranberry Cinnamon Rolls, Cinnamon Raisin Energy Balls, Coconut Shrimp with Bloody Mary Dip, and Lemony Shrimp Scampy with Orzo.  In the end, I decided Lauren's Spinach Salad with Spicy Pineapple Dressing was the best fit with the healthy eating plan I'm trying to follow this month.

I did make a couple of changes to fit my current food habits and available ingredients.  Firstly I replaced chicken with salmon, since I'm not eating any meat at the moment and, as a clean out of my fridge revealed a jar of jerk paste needing to be used up, I marinated my salmon with some of that instead of the ancho chilli powder which is not readily available here.  I couldn't get any spinach at the market this week, so I've used cos lettuce instead;  I replaced coriander (cilantro) with mint because that's what I had in the garden;  and I replaced apple cider vinegar with fresh lime juice, again because that's what I had on hand.  I increased the amount of chilli in the dressing as well, and let me tell you that this dressing is so good I could just drink it on it's own.  The combination of sweet pineapple, hot chilli, fresh mint and sour lime is positively irresistible, and was the perfect foil to the oily, spicy salmon.  Thanks for a great recipe, Lauren - this is definitely one I will be repeating.

Jerk Salmon Salad with Spicy Pineapple Dressing Recipe
adapted from this recipe
at Sew You Think You Can Cook
Serves 2 as a main meal

2x fillets of salmon, pin bones removed
2 teaspoons of jerk paste
olive oil

1/2 a fresh pineapple, core & skin removed and discarded
generous handful of fresh mint leaves
1x clove garlic
1x green chilli, roughly chopped (remove seeds if you prefer)
juice of 1/2 an orange
2 tablespoons lime juice
flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
extra virgin olive oil

salad leaves of your choice
thinly sliced red & yellow peppers

Rub jerk paste all over salmon fillets, and set aside in the fridge to marinate for at least two hours.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F).

Meanwhile, make the spicy pineapple dressing.  Cut the fresh pineapple into chunks, and put half of the chunks into a blender - reserve the rest of the pineapple chunks for the salad.  Add the mint leaves, garlic, chilli, orange juice, lime juice, salt and pepper to the blender and blitz until smooth.  Then with the blender running, add extra virgin olive oil in a thin stream, until dressing is smooth and emulsified.  Taste and adjust seasoning to your liking.

Place salmon in a lightly greased ovenproof dish, drizzle with a little olive oil, and place in the preheated oven until cooked through - about 8 to 10 minutes depending on the size of your fillets.

While the salmon is cooking, toss salad leaves, red & yellow peppers, and chunks of pineapple together.  Arrange on a serving platter, and drizzle over the dressing.   Remove salmon from the oven, place on top of the salad and drizzle with a little more dressing.  Serve immediately.

I hope you enjoy this dish as much as I did, and visit the links below to check out all the other great dishes my Secret Recipe Club friends made.

An InLinkz Link-up

Pink Grapefruit, Prawn & Toasted Coconut Salad

I've spent a lot of my time over the last few weeks decluttering.  Like a woman possessed, I have bit by bit gone through every room and cupboard in the house, having a major clean-out of all that stuff I've been hanging onto "just in case" it's ever needed one day.

I have spoken to my yoga students often about staying in the present, living in the moment, and yet despite that I have managed to surround myself with a whole lot of stuff because of some attachment to a time long past, or possible need in some uncertain future.  It's ridiculous, it doesn't amount to staying present, and it's all been suffocating me.

I have to say I'm surprised how long it's taken to work my way through the house, and I'm not finished yet (there's still the bathroom and kitchen cupboards) to go, but I guess I'm not going to deal with 40 years of accumulated clap-trap in five minutes.  Now don't get me wrong, it's not like I would have made an ideal candidate for "World's Greatest Hoarders", but there was a lot of stuff.

There's no doubt this is an incredibly freeing process - it's given me a real sense of lightening the load, and allowing space for change.

So what does all of this have to do with this dish?  Well, part of my decluttering process has extended to trying to give the freezer a bit of a clean-out, wherein I found a bag of prawns that needed to be used up.  Since we have another Mystery Box Challenge this week at I Heart Cooking Clubs, which requires us to make a dish from anyone of our IHCC chefs using at least three of these ingredients: potatoes, buttermilk, flour, paprika, onion, leafy greens, lemon, honey, prawns, and feta - it seemed like the ideal time to use those prawns.

I'd had Diana Henry's recipe in A Change of Appetite for A Warm Salad of Pink Grapefruit, Prawns, and Toasted Coconut bookmarked for quite a while, and since with a little adaptation the recipe enabled me to use prawns, leafy greens and honey, this looked like the perfect dish to meet the mystery box challenge.

I made only very minimal changes to the recipe, briefly oven-roasting the prawns instead of pan frying them, since I always look for any opportunity I can to avoid standing over a frying pan, and for a bit of extra kick I added some red pepper flakes to the prawns while the roasted.  I also replaced sugar in the dressing with honey, and replaced groundnut oil with a combination of olive oil and sesame oil.

This made a wonderful light meal, absolutely bursting with flavour and interesting texture - soft, velvety leaves provide a cooling background to spicy prawns and the citrusy, sweet-tart burst of the grapefruit, accompanied by the crunch of the coconut, peanuts and sesame seeds.  This is definitely a dish I can see myself repeating often over the remainder of summer - I can even see it inspiring a few variations.

Pink Grapefruit, Prawn & Toasted Coconut Salad Recipe
Adapted (barely) from recipe by Diana Henry
from A Change of Appetite
Serves 2 as a light meal

for the dressing:
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon sesame oil

for the salad:
2x pink grapefruit
1 cup shaved coconut from a fresh coconut
1 tablespoon olive oil
350g (12 oz) fresh prawns, shelled & deveined
red pepper flakes
flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
leafy salad greens
bunch of fresh mint leaves
1x red chilli, deseeded and finely sliced
large handful roasted peanuts, roughly chopped
sesame seeds

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C (360 degrees F).

Begin by making the dressing.  Place all the ingredients in a small jug, whisk to combine, and set aside.

Prepare the grapefruit - remove the peel and all the white pith from the grapefruit, then, working over a bowl, remove the segments by running a sharp knife between the membrane and the flesh on each side of the segment to release the segment.  Discard the membrane, set the flesh aside.

Using a hammer or the back of a heavy knife, break the coconut shell open and prise out the flesh.  Using a vegetable peeler, shave the coconut into thin slices.  Dry fry the shaved coconut in a pan over medium heat until golden.  This happens quickly, so don't leave the kitchen.

In a bowl toss together the prawns, olive oil, generous pinch of red pepper flakes, flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Spread prawns in a single layer in an ovenproof dish and roast in the preheated oven until cooked through - this only takes a few minutes.

Remove from the oven and immediately toss with the grapefruit segments, red chilli and half the dressing.

Arrange salad greens and mint on serving plates, and arrange prawns and grapefruit amongst the salad leaves.  Scatter toasted coconut, peanuts, and sesame seeds over the top, and drizzle with the remaining dressing.

Serve immediately.

If you would like to get to know Diana Henry a little better, and to see what everyone else has cooked up this week, then do go and visit my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links (who knows, you might even want to join the journey and cook along with us) ...

... or check out A Change of Appetite and Diana's many other great titles available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, or Fishpond NZ.

Asparagus Mimosa

I have no notion which came first ... the chicken or the egg?  That's our theme this week at I Heart Cooking Clubs, which gives us the opportunity to explore Diana Henry dishes featuring, naturally enough, chicken or eggs.  And, whilst I'm pretty certain no one is going to come up with a definitive answer to that age old question, some of the dishes my friends have come up with would definitely answer just about any other woes.

I was certainly looking for a dish to satisfy a few woes myself this week.  We've had two weeks of builders, gib stoppers, electricians, etc doing flood damage repairs on our house, including ripping out and replacing the kitchen and dining room ceiling.  This would be disruptive enough in itself, but the fact that the workmanship and trade practices of some of these workmen left a bit to be desired, has been frustrating at best, and at times downright infuriating.

So I was looking for something verging on comfort food, which meant I was heading down the egg route, rather than the chicken route.  When all is said and done, is there anything more comforting than a simple, soft boiled egg?!

After picking up a fresh bunch of asparagus (hands down my favourite vegetable) at the market yesterday, I thought this asparagus mimosa would make a delightful, light and simple lunch, before tackling the big post-repair clean-up - a project which has kept me busy for most of the weekend.

Now, let's be truthful here - asparagus mimosa is nothing new - it's one of those classic dishes that has been around forever.  But, to be honest, I have often wondered what all the fuss is about ... after all, just how good could a few asparagus spears with a crumbled boiled egg over the top really be.

Well, I don't know about the original, but Diana Henry's version provided proof positive, if ever it were needed (and really I've said it here so often I should not have been surprised), that combining a few good quality ingredients, and "messing with them" as little as possible, will deliver sensational results.  Every! Single! Time!

Here simple steamed asparagus stems, drizzled with a lemony-herby-caper dressing, and topped with a soft-boiled free range egg, delivers on every front.  It provides all the comfort of dunking asparagus spears straight into a soft boiled egg in a cup, with the added flavour punch of the dressing, and turns it into a dish which is easily elegant enough to serve to company.

This would make a great appetiser as part of a large meal, but is also the perfect dish for a light spring lunch.  You don't need to be too particular about quantities - I've just given you a rough guide for one person, and you can easily multiply it up to feed as many as you like.

Important note:  A dish such as this is all about the ingredients, so use the best you can get your hands on.  Use only in-season asparagus IN YOUR PART OF THE WORLD.  Right now, I'm sure those of you in the northern hemisphere can probably buy asparagus shipped from New Zealand, or Australia, or South Africa - please don't!  Bookmark this recipe instead and wait until spring returns.  If you have a local farmer's market where you can buy asparagus picked fresh that morning, even better.  A juicy, organic lemon picked straight from the tree, and flat-leaf parsley picked straight from the garden, are perfect if you have them, but I know that's not always possible.  Good quality capers are a must - I like the ones packed in salt, but brined are fine too.  Extra virgin olive oil, should be the best that you can afford, and it goes without saying that only a free-range organic egg will do.  Also, although I never bother peeling my asparagus, I think it is worth doing here.  In a dish so simple, in which you really want the ingredients to shine in every possible way, it just seems right - it looks beautiful, and really helps the asparagus to soak up that dressing.

Asparagus Mimosa Recipe
Adapted slightly from recipe by Diana Henry
from A Change of Appetite

For each person allow:
1x bunch (5-6 spears) asparagus
1x free range egg
zest and juice of 1/2 lemon
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon wholegrain mustard
flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
small bunch flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
1 tablespoon capers, rinsed and drained, roughly chopped

Place egg in a small pot, cover with cold water, and bring to the boil.  Boil for four minutes.  Remove egg with a slotted spoon and place in a bowl of cold water, until egg has cooled enough to handle, but is still warm.

In a small bowl, whisk together lemon juice, olive oil, mustard, salt and pepper, until well combined.  Stir in the parsley, and capers.  Set aside.

Snap the woody ends off the asparagus spears, and peel the ends.  Boil the asparagus until just tender to the tip of a sharp knife - about four minutes, depending on the thickness of the spears.

Meanwhile, peel the egg, place on a plate or board and mash with a fork, until crumbled and yolk and white mixed together.

Drain asparagus as soon as it is ready and place on a serving plate.  Drizzle over a generous amount of the dressing, and spoon the crumbled egg over the middle of the asparagus.  Finish with another drizzle of olive oil if you like.

If you would like to get to know Diana Henry a little better, and to see what everyone else has cooked up this week, then do go and visit my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links (who knows, you might even want to join the journey and cook along with us) ...

... or check out A Change of Appetite and Diana's many other great titles available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, or Fishpond NZ.