Sunday Salads- Cucumber and Sprout Salad

I know that I don’t need to tell you how much I love butter and sugar. It’s obvious.

But in my day to day, I’m trying to get healthier. I work out a couple times of week, I eat a lot of veggies, I drink green juice like it’s going out of style, and yet I still feel like all my friends are so much more disciplined than me when it comes to food.

I went out for brunch with a girlfriend recently, and before eating anything, she added a strange green powder to her glass of water and chugged it.

“It has all the good stuff in it” she explained. Is this a thing now? Do I need to start drinking spirulina before every meal?

The answer, of course, is no. And I hate the idea of having to drink powders in order to get your daily nutrition and so I won’t. I can’t. The Italian in me just wanted to shake her and tell her to eat and be happy.

But I’ll give my health nut friends this- I love sprouts. I’ve been putting them in everything these days, and I am loving it. I’ve been growing my own sprouts for ages (remember this post on growing them in vintage tins?) and my local organic shop has started selling sprouted grains and legumes, and they are just the perfect bit of crunch in a salad. Especially when that salad is already a bowlful of crunch in the form of these wonderful little cucumbers. Throw in some lime and cilantro, and this is just about the healthiest salad you could eat!

Cucumber and Sprout Salad

1 lg English Cucumber, or a handful of small cukes- I used organic lemon cucumbers

1/3 cup Sprouted Legumes and Grains

1 1/2 cups Pea Sprouts

Juice of 1 Lime

1/4 cup Cilantro, finely chopped

1/4 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

In a medium sized bowl mix together the lime and olive oil. Season with the salt and pepper and stir in the cilantro. Check the seasoning adding more salt, lime, or oil depending. 

Cut the cucumber- if using a long cuke, cut lengthwise in quarters, cut out the seeds and then cut the pieces on a bias. If using small ones just make them look pretty- I cut my in 6ths lengthwise. 

Add the cukes to the salad dressing, and then toss in the sprouts. 

Serve immediately. 

Sunday Salads- Sesame Soba Salad with Cucumber and Kale

Sometimes I make something and I just know I have to tell you about it right away. I need you to know how great it is, I need to tell you now.

Sometimes I make something, and I tinker around with it. I change things up, and months after the first time I decide it’s okay to write about it. It’s deserving.

But sometimes, and this is true often more of cooking than baking, that I make something, and it seems so obvious, so easy it would seem almost insulting to you to give it a recipe and put it up here. It’s something that I make so often that I assume everyone does. That it’s just normal and simple and not worthy of the formality of a recipe and a blog post.

But then I realize that everyone cooks different things at home, and something like this soba noodle salad, which I am making variations on almost weekly, might be worth sharing.

Soba noodles are a staple in my house. I make a big bowl and they last a few days, sometimes serving with steak or some fish, but just as often eating it straight up. It’s a quick lunch or dinner, and it feels good when you eat it. I find myself craving it in the summer months, it’s light and cold and filled with things that my body needs.

So I hope that you look at this not just as a recipe, but as a starting point, mix it up, add in things that you have in your fridge, make it spicier, or lime-ier.

You get to decide.

Soba Noodle Salad with Cucumber and Kale

2 bunches of Soba Noodles (they are usually sold in pre-portioned bunches)

1/2 English Cucumber, thinly sliced

1/2 bunch Kale, torn into small pieces off the center stem.

4 Green Onions, thinly sliced on a bias.

1/4 cup Soy Sauce

1 Lime

1 tsp Siracha or other hot pepper- garlic sauce

1/4 cup Sesame Oil

3 tbsp Toasted Sesame Seeds

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.  

Cook the soba to the package instructions. Drain and rinse with cold water, stirring until the noodles cool. If you don’t stir, they won’t cool down properly. 

Meanwhile, mix together the soy, lime, siracha, and sesame oil. Check for seasoning, adding more of whatever you need until it’s perfect. 

Mix sauce with the noodles then mix in the veggies. 

Serve and sprinkle with the sesame seeds. 

Grilled Spot Prawns with a Thai Mango Salad

In Italy they celebrate the first asparagus with festivals all over the country (though I’m told especially in Veneto), ringing in the first of the local produce after a long winter of root vegetables and grains. I remember being told that in cooking school and feeling a little left out, a little cast to the side that we didn’t have these traditions, that my deep and very self important 19 year old self had missed something important. That some deep rooted cultural practise that I believed in had just passed me by because I lived in Canada.

And while that was many things, self indulgent definitely among them, it’s also not true. We may not have the long standing history of it, but Vancouver has spot prawns. And with them the Spot Prawn Festival.

I didn’t really realize before I moved to Vancouver that seafood is just as seasonal as produce, but it makes sense once you think about it. If you want the best salmon in BC you wait until mid-late summer, you’ll catch the fattiest trout in the fall, but of all seafood nothing is as seasonal as the spot prawn.

They are the first things out of the water in the Spring, big prawns that are bright coral and marked with two namesake white dots on their tails. They are tender beyond any shrimp or prawn I’ve ever had and they have an unmistakably sweet flavour. You have probably seen them in Asian supermarkets swimming around, or on Japanese menus as “ama-ebi” or sweet shrimp, but the taste of them fresh from the water is a completely different experience.

They are also one of the only sustainable shrimp/prawn fisheries in the world, and we are incredibly lucky not only to have these glorious little guys swimming around our local waters but also to have a sustainable fish shop 2 blocks away from our apartment.

Now, spot prawns are not cheap, they cost a pretty penny, so these are not for everyday, at least not on my budget (they average around $15 a pound!) but they are worth buying a few every Spring to celebrate.

I made a light dinner of them the other day, with a simple Thai inspired mango salad and grilled the prawns until just they are just barely cooked. With a cold beer, you’d be hard pressed to find a better summer meal!

Grilled Spot Prawns with Thai Mango Salad

*If you can’t get spot prawns you can make this with any shrimp, but fresh and local will make a difference in the taste if you can get them. 

Thai Mango Salad

1 philipine Mango (you can use Chinese mangos too, but the Phillipine ones are less fibrous, and often cheaper!)

1/2 a Cucumber

1/4 Red Onion

1/2 inch piece of fresh ginger

1 clove garlic

Juice of 1 lime

1 tbsp Fish Sauce

1 tsp Sambal Olek or other Asian chili garlic oil

2 tbsp Peanut or Canola Oil

Handful of cilantro and mint.

Spot Prawns

10 Prawns, head off

Zest of 1 Lime

1 tbsp Sambal Olek or other Asian chili garlic oil

1 tbsp Peanut or Canola Oil

Throw all the ingredients into a bowl and marinade for at least half an hour.

Meanwhile make the salad.

Mix the lime juice, fish sauce, sambal and oil in a bowl. On a rasp grate the ginger and garlic and mix it in. Check for seasoning, it should be quite strong- the lime, sambal and fish sauce should jump out at you!

Thinly slice the onion and add to the dressing.

Peel the mango with a peeler. Throw out the peel, then continue to use the peeler to get nice thin strips of the fruit. Add to the bowl.

Cut the cucumber in half and use the peeler to make thin strips of it. You could use a mandoline here if you wanted to, but then you’d have to wash it after, so I just use the peeler.

Mix this all together- this can sit for about an hour like this, but don’t add the herbs until your just about to serve it.

For the prawns- Heat your BBQ, grill pan, or saute pan until it’s blazing hot. Your only going to cook the prawns for about a minute each side, and your going to be taking the shells off, so you want to impart as much flavour into the meat as possible. If the edges get a little black it’s a good thing.

Once your surface is scorching hot put the prawns out in a single layer and let them cook for 1 minute each side and then flip. Once they’re starting to curl up, the edges are getting colored and they have turned bright coral your in business, take them off right away.

Mix your herbs into the salad, place half of it on each plate and put 5 prawns per plate. Poor yourself a beer and dig in!