Waking up in Umbria to a view of golden Autumnal vineyards, distant mountains and white mist, the church bells ring out across the valley as the market stall holders quietly prepare for their first customers. There are tables piled high with the region’s seasonal bounty including the last of the grapes, sacks of farro, lentils,…
Category: Salads
Healthy salads to share
Salerno Sweet Red Pepper and Fontina Cheese Frittata
They say that Salerno is the Amalfi Coast’s best kept secret so I probably shouldn’t tell you about it. It’s important you see that this grand old signora of Campania remains a secret otherwise all and sundry will be aching to reside in one of its cute little teracotta-roofed appartamentos piled one on top of…
Old Town Feta, Watermelon and Kalamata Olive Salad
This beautiful salad is inspired by a backstreet grocery store in Corfu old town whose frontage is a cornucopia of fresh seasonal fruit and vegetables piled high in rickety old wooden crates. Tiny sweet apricots, velvety flat peaches, glossy nectarines, huge watermelons, bright gnarly lemons, green figs and dark juicy cherries. Two girls, gloriously plump…
La Belle Salade Niçoise with a Green Olive Tapenade Dressing
Named ‘La Belle’ after the frequently used nickname for the city of Nice which lies in the French Riviera on the Mediterranean Sea, this salad typifies for me the fresh seasonal beauty of the local cuisine. This simple plate of summer is inspired by Richard Olney’s musings on Lulu Peyraud who, with her husband Lucien,…
Cetara Marinated Plum Tomatoes with Cipolla Rossa di Tropea DOP
Positioned high above the glittering Tyrrhenian Sea along the staggeringly beautiful Amalfi coast, the small fishing village of Cetara is often missed as the hoards head out to the more popular towns of Ravello, Amalfi itself or Positano to the beaches lined with ice cream coloured umbrellas laid out in their perfectly judged rows. They’re all…
Tuscan Cannellini Bean and Cipolla Rossa di Tropea Salad
Here’s another lovely salad recipe designed to enjoy outside on sultry summer evenings such as we’re experiencing now. Whenever I come across the universally loved cipolla rossa di Tropea – sweet red onions from the Calabria region of Italy – I am in first in line to buy them. I love their incredible sweetness which makes them perfect for adding to frittatas,…
Saint-Raphaël Soft-boiled Egg, Shallot and Tarragon Tartine
“Egg dishes have a kind of elegance“ wrote Elizabeth David, “a freshness, an allure which sets them quite apart from any other kind of food so it becomes a great pleasure to be able to cook them properly and to serve them in just the right condition.” It’s exactly that quality that makes this simple tartine…
Provençal Potato Salad with Green Beans, Asparagus, Peas, Mint and Chervil
Imagine a French summer garden filled with tall cypress trees and blooms of the brightest hues with their faces turned to the sun. A weathered white dovecote is home to a pair of doves that coo above the thousands of geranium flowers – pink, white and red – that tumble over the edges of old…
Corfu Market Salad with Cumin-roasted Squash, Wild Rice and Black Beans with a Honey Mustard Dressing
I felt a little bit guilty about ordering a 500cl bottle of ice cold retsina at lunch time – errr, just after 12pm – following a hot hour of shopping at the farmer’s market in Corfu town last summer. Not for long though because it was such a pleasure to sit for another blissful hour…
Greek Spelt, Roasted Red Pepper and Chickpea Salad with an Oregano and Lemon Dressing
Picture yourself sitting at a table for six on chairs painted in a faded shade of Aegean blue, its white cotton cloth billowing in the warm breeze, the sea slowly lapping onto the beach just yards from your feet. Women, invariably dressed in black, sit alongside one another on a bench cracking pistachio shells as…
Cardamom and Dill 