Moroccan and Asian Ribbon Salads with Carrots, Cucumbers and Peppers

Photo from Sarah Britton of My New Roots, her food blog based in Copenhagen, Denmark.


Ribbon salads are lovely. If you don't have a mandoline, a simple vegetable peeler works well.  I've added a cucumber and chopped peppers to the salad pictured above.   Britton's inspiration is Moroccan, but if you prefer Asian,  you might could substitute edamame for the lentils and use the Asian dressing recipe I've included instead.  If you'd like to make this a meal, serve the Moroccan salad over 2 cups of cooked quinoa or the Asian salad over 2 cups of cooked whole wheat, buckwheat or rice noodles.


Serves 4

Ingredients:
1 cup lentils or edamame, cooked
2-3 large carrots
1 cucumber, peeled, halved,

½ pepper, sweet or poblano
1 small onion, 1/2 medium onion or 1/4 large onion
¼ cup each mint and cilantro

Marinade:
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon orange juice
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 tablespoon miso
1 tablespoon water

Moroccan Dressing:
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
½ tablespoon anise seeds
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon paprika

¼ teaspoon ground coriander

pinch of hot red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon freshly-squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon honey (or agave, for the vegan version)
3 tablespoon extra virgin oil
1 tablespoon miso

6 prunes, pitted and finely chopped

or

Asian Dressing:

1 ½  tablespoon sesame seeds

2 teaspoon of  honey or agave

2 tablespoon lime juice

1 tablespoon of toasted sesame seed oil
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, finely chopped
pinch of hot red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon miso
1 pear, seeded, cored and julienned into small strips

1.  Cook the lentils or endame and rinse.
2.  Whisk the marinade together in large bowl.
3.   Wash the carrots and wash and peel the cucumber.  Using the peeler, peel long ribbons lengthwise and place in the bowl with the marinade. Let sit while you prepare the rest of the veggies.
4.  Stem and seed the pepper and chop finely.  Peel onion and chop finely.
5.  Make the dressing of your choice. First, toast the whole seeds in a dry skillet over medium-high heat until fragrant.  Let cool.  Add with remaining dressing ingredients to a jar with a tight lid and shake well.
6.  In a large bowl, add lentils or edamame and the veggies.  Pour on dressing and toss well.  Store covered in refrigerator until ready to serve.
7.  Divide the salad among four individual bowls and garnish with washed and chopped herbs.  

Blistered Shishito Peppers

Photo from Jenny Park and Teri Lynn Fisher's blog, Spoon Fork Bacon.



JP tells me that this week's bag will contain shishito peppers and suggested that I feature them in the recipe.

Of Japanese origin, folks describe shishito peppers as  grassy and citrusy,  sweet and mild in taste.  Except when they aren't.

Some say that about one in ten or twenty are hot, which makes them a fun kind of surprise.  In Scoville heat units, they measure  50 – 200, meaning that at their hottest, they are still 13 times milder than jalapeños.  Matt Bray of Pepper Scale writes that it's likely that the shishito has its roots in the padrón, another pepper which varies in heat.  That pepper likely ended up in Spain in the 16th century from South America.  He speculates that the Japanese soil mixed with continued growing of the mildest peppers likely converted the taste and heat to what we have today.

On the other hand, Sandi Gaertner writes in her Fearless Dining blog that "I have yet to find a hot one….and I have had at least four pints of shishito peppers in the past month in our farm box." Despite not finding any hot ones, they are still a favorite and she has recipes for a variety of chilled soups including pepper,  pepper and mango and gazpacho,  as well as for a shishito sauce to serve with chicken over cheesy polenta and a shishito stir fry.

Since shishitos have thin walls, they can be roasted whole and eaten, except for the stems.  I am giving you directions on how to blister them in an iron skillet.  Since it would take at least a half a  pound to serve four as an appetizer,  I'm suggesting that if there are fewer you halve them lengthwise and use to garnish this week's tomatoes and cucumbers in the quinoa salad or use them to supplement other sweet peppers in Gaertner's recipes.

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Serves 4

Salad ingredients:
2 cups of chickpeas or black beans, cooked
1 cup heirloom tomatoes, chopped coarsely quartered
1 cucumber, seeded and diced
1 cup quinoa, cooked
2 tablespoons onion, minced
2 tablespoons fresh herbs, minced
4 tablespoons lime juice
salt & fresh ground pepper to taste

Blistered pepper ingredients:
whole shishito peppers, washed and dried
1 tablespoon non extra virgin olive oil or coconut oil or ghee
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil, plus more for drizzling at the end
salt and cracked black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons of sesame seeds

Directions:

1.  The night before, to cook the beans, in a heavy bottomed stainless steel pan, cover one cup of dried chickpeas with three cups of water and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to low, cover with lid and simmer for five minutes.  Let soak overnight.  Drain and rinse the chickpeas and repeat, but this time simmer until soft, about an hour to an hour and a half.  Drain and rinse a second time.

2.  To cook the quinoa, add the 2/3 cup of raw quinoa and to two cups of boiling water and return to boil. Take off stove and rinse well. Add back in a scant 2 cups of water and return to stove and bring to a boil. Turn down to low. Cover. Cook 15 minutes. Let stand for five minutes and then
fluff with a fork.

3.  In a medium large bowl,  combine all the salad ingredients, cover and store in refrigerator to chill. 

4.   Place cast iron skillet over medium heat.  When a drop of water will evaporate add sesame seeds and cook until they pop and transfer to a dish.

5.  Turn the heat to high and add the oils.

6.  Carefully add peppers to pan and sauté for 3 to 5 minutes, moving them around the pan frequently. Season with salt and pepper.

7. Once peppers have charred/blistered all around and have begun to wilt remove from heat.  Cut in half lengthwise.

8.  To serve, transfer the salad to four individual bowls, top with half a pepper (or more, if they are available)  and toasted sesame seeds and drizzle with additional sesame seed oil.

Gazpacho

Photo (no photographer credited) from Epicurious


JP tells me that this week's farm share will include lots of tomatoes of various types.  They're so pretty you could just sliced them on a platter or dice them with watermelon in a salad.  If it cools down, they'd be delicious in tomato pie.  If it doesn't, here's another way to serve them, in a simple gazpacho which doesn't, like the more complicated versions, require blanching the tomatoes and seeding them.  I use quinoa in this soup,  rather than bread cubes, which still provides a smooth texture while having the advantage of being gluten free, if you have friends that are on restricted diets.

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Serves 4

Ingredients

3 cups of tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped
2 cups cucumber, peeled, seeded, and chopped
1 cup sweet pepper, chopped
1 1/4 cups onion, chopped
3 cups canned tomato juice
2 tablespoons chopped fresh herbs (such as tarragon, thyme, basil, parsley and/or cilantro)
1/4 balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves smashed, peeled and finely chopped
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 1/2 tablespoons of lime juice
1 cup of cooked quinoa
sea salt
1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon cumin

Directions

1.   In a bowl, reserve 2 tablespoons each of the tomato, cucumber, pepper, and onion, plus the herbs to garnish.
2.   Purée the remaining ingredients in a blender or food processor until smooth, adjusting the seasoning to taste with lime juice, salt, and cayenne pepper.
3. Cover and chill thoroughly, at least 3 hours but preferably overnight.
4.  Serve in chilled bowls garnished with the reserved vegetables

Roasted Beet and Quinoa Salad with Beet Greens, Red Onions, Cucumbers, Feta and Walnuts

Photo from Dani Spies.  I first published this post at 8:15 pm on 7/7/14 and updated it at 3:00 pm on 7/8/14 to include the actual farm share and links to additional recipes.

The July 8 farm share was slated to include lettuce mix, beets, cilantro, tomatoes, red bunch onions and cucumbers.  The actual share also included summer squash and the beets included the greens, as I had hoped.



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Beets and chard are part of the same species (and, as is spinach in the Amaranth family), so the greens are very similar in taste. Make sure you remove the greens right away before storing so that they won't drain moisture from the roots.  You can used the greens  raw in a salad or steam or saute them.  Because the stalks take a little bit longer to cook, I cook them first, before adding the greens.  Besides tasting good, beet greens are packed with vitamins A and C and have a good amount of iron and calcium too.This recipe uses both the roots and the greens.

Serves 4-6

1.  Cook one cup of quinoa.

2.  Separate the beet roots from the greens.  Scrub the roots.  I roast the whole beet roots unpeeled for 20 minutes in a countertop convection oven, as it doesn't heat up the house so much in summer and saves electricity, too.  But if you don't have  one, you can roast the beets, wrapped in foil,  in a regular oven preheated to 400 degrees F for 50 minutes or until tender (small beets cook faster.)

3. Chop the beet stems, keeping separate and tear the greens into large pieces.

3.  Mince three whole cloves of garlic (or you can substitute 2 TB of garlic scape pesto, if you have some left.  

4.  Finely chop the red bunch onions and greens. Reserve 2 TB of onions for the beet roots.


5.  Lightly coat cast iron skillet with extra virgin olive oil and heat to medium.  Saute beet stems until tender and add  remainder of onions saute until translucent.  Stir in beat greens until just wilted. Set aside to cool.

6.  Peel the roasted beets and cut them into small bite site pieces and let cool.

7.  Chop 1/2 cup of cilantro.

8.  Chop 1 cucumber.

9.  In a large bowl combine  beets, beet greens, chopped cucumbers, 1 tsp olive oil, 1 TB balsamic vinegar, garlic, and pepper to taste. Toss with cooked quinoa.  Top with 1/4 c. walnuts, 1/4 # of crumbled feta and top with cilantro before serving.

Additional beet recipes:

Moroccan Stew:  Beets, Buttercup Squash and Radishes

I also like to make a cold beet borscht by boiling grated beets until soft with lemon juice and a bit of sugar, chilling and topping with Greek yogurt or tofu sour cream and cold diced boiled potatoes.

Kohlrabi Fritters with Tzatziki (Greek Cumber Yogurt Dill Sauce)

Photo from Blooming Glen Farm in Pennsylvania

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The July 1 farm share from Glade Road Growing is expected to include kohlrabi, cabbage, summer squash, cucumbers, onion, and dill.

There's more information on the cabbage relative and a recipe for an apple and kohlrabi slaw at my post from last year.  This week I I thought I'd provide a recipe that combines it with the cucumbers, oninion and dill.  You can also eat kohlrabi raw, in soup, roasted, steamed or spicy in Indian recipes.

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I'm not sure how many kohlrabi bulbs will be in the farm share.  While this fritter recipe calls for four, you can make up the difference by using the summer squash. Or if you'd like to use the squash for another recipe, you can use potatoes (and omit the oats or brown rice.) The kohlrabi greens, if they are included, will be edible. The greens, too, are edible. Take the smaller, newer leaves, trim them and cook as you would beet greens, until they are tender.

Serves 4 - 6

Start by making the Tzatziki sauce and put in the refrigerator to thicken.  You will only use a portion for this recipe and can use the rest as a salad dressing or dip during the rest of the week.

1.  Peel 4 kohlrabi bulbs and shred (or mix shredded kohlrabi and unpeeled shredded summer squash or potatoes to make 2 - 3 cups).  Place in colander and squeeze out excess moisture.

2.  In a bowl, combine:

2 beaten eggs
1/2 cup cooked oat groats or brown rice
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

3. Add kohlrabi or kohlrabi-squash mixture by the spoonful and mix until coated.

4.  Form fritter mixture into two inch balls and lightly coat with whole wheat flour.

5.  Heat lightly oiled cast iron skillet until a bead of water evaporates.  Drop into skillet. Press gently with spatula to flatten. Cook for 5-7 minutes on each side, or until golden brown.


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Want a good recipe for the cabbage?  You can shred it and make it into a slaw using the recipe I've linked to or here's a recipe for my favorite cabbage borscht.

Cucumber and Hakurei Turnip Salad

Photo of hakurei turnips from Glade Road Growing.  The June 17 farm share is slated to include summer squash, turnips, bok choy, carrots, parsley, bunch onions, spinach, and sugar peas.

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Hakurei turnips are crisp and a bit sweet.  You can eat them just about any way:  raw, roasted, pickled, steamed, sauteed, glazed, candied, in soups and roasted.  The greens are edible raw or cooked and taste similar to mustard greens.  There's no need to peel the turnips, just trim the root end (which can saved and used in making a veggie stock.)  The globes keep well in the fridge in a sealed glass container, if you separate the greens and store them separately.

I thought I'd give you a recipe for a simple salad with an oriental flair, since these turnips were first developed in Japan during the 1950s.  The photo is from Elly Says Opa on Flckr. I've adapted her 2011 recipe below.

At the bottom of this page, I've linked to some recipes from last year the bok choy and for the carrots and summer squash.


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Serves 4

1. Thinly slice 1 medium cucumber and 4 hakurei turnip globes. Sprinkle with salt and place in colander and let drain for about 20 minutes to remove the excess moisture.

2. Lightly oil a small cast iron skillet and heat on stove until a drop of water sprinkled evaporates.  Add a thin layer of sesame seeds and toast until they start to pop.  Transfer to a glass jar and cool before you screw on the lid for storage.

3. Grate or finely mince 1/2 t fresh ginger

4. Wash, drain and chop 4 T fresh parsley.  (You can ensure that the parsley stays fresh for as long as possible by removing all the leaflets from the stems and storing in an inverted wide-mouth mason jar  towards the front of the fridge.)

5. In a pint jar combine ginger with:
1 1/2  T balsamic vinegar
1 tsp. demerara sugar
1/8 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 tsp. miso paste

6. Transfer cucumbers and turnips to a serving bowl or 4 individual salad bowls.Pour the vinaigrette over the cucumbers and turnips and toss to coat.  Refrigerate until ready to serve.

7. Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds and chopped parsley, keeping any extra for other recipes. 

To make this a main meal, you can toss in 1/2 cups of cooked beans or feta cheese and 1/3 cup of  walnuts. You can serve over a bed of fresh spinach or cooked quinoa  or toss with 2 cups of cooked wheat berries.

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Additional recipes for this week's farm share:

Bok Choy Slaw
Tzatziki with Carrots and Summer Squash