Potato & dill salad, bring on the pickles!

Another heat wave in Montreal and I can’t say that I’ve gathered up the courage or the desire to make any stews yet! Aside from stuffing my face with watermelon and spoonfuls of caramel, I’ve also been enjoying my salads (hence all the salad recipes!)

I created this salad after I enjoyed a plate of cold cuts, pickles and smoked salmon this summer. The plate was presented in a very rustic manner at this posh gastro pub (Dominion Square Tavern) and the pickles reminded me of something I could perhaps encounter while visiting an eastern european family (not that I know any).

The pickles, dill and lemon zest give this simple potato salad enough pizzaz that it will feel like a Merengue duo just danced all over your picnic table! Which probably explains why it’s been such a hit at my dinner table 🙂

Ingredients:

3 cups of small potatoes

1/4 cup of miniature pickles (gherkins)

1/2 cup of dill (diced)

2 green onions

Kosher salt & pepper

vinaigrette

1/2 lemon (juiced)

6 tablespoons of olive oil

2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon of maple syrup (or honey)

Preparation

1-Cut your potatoes in 2 or 4. Boil them in slightly salted water.

2-Dice your dill, green onions and pickles. Zest your lemon.

3-prepare your vinaigrette

4-Once your potatoes are cooked, refrigerate them. (or you could put them in the freezer like me!)

5-Mix everything together!

Note: If you have normal potatoes just dice them to make them smaller.

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Apple, endives and mint salad

Well, even though it’s almost the end of August already (sighhhhhhh), I’m still enjoying my summer salads and not quite ready to dive into beef stews and chicken roasts just yet. Here is a great salad that I had the pleasure to taste in a nice trendy hang out in Montreal called Laïka. People usually go to this venue for drinks but the food is decent and the prices are reasonable.

The combination of the apples, the endives and the mint make this salad fresh and tasty. perfect for a BBQ dish, served on its own our next to a tasty piece of white meat fish like Tilapia.

Ingredients

3 endives sliced thinly

1 1/2 apples sliced thinly

25 fresh mint leaves

7 fresh basil leaves

juice of 1/2 a lemon

Vinaigrette

4 tablespoons of olive oil

2 tablespoons of rice vinegar

1 tablespoon of maple syrup (or honey)

salt and pepper

Preparation

Mix all the ingredients together!

Note: You could do the vinaigrette first and add it to the salad.

Add the lemon juice to the apples quickly so they don’t become brown.

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Mango shrimp salad!

For some reason in the summertime the only thing that I want to eat is hamburgers, salads and ice cream! This is definitely one of my favorite recipes in regards to salads. I always love to have a bag of shrimp in my freezer, and this is a great recipe to do when nothing else in the fridge is appealing and you feel like eating something light!

You can cook your shrimp in a pan but the flavour that you’ll get from the BBQ is well worth it! I usually thaw my shrimp in some cold water (the frozen shrimp being in a plastic bag) but my hubby takes the lazy route and directly puts them on the BBQ, and honestly, it tastes great!

ingredients

10/15 Tiger shrimp (fresh or frozen)

1 green onion

1 ripe mango (diced)

1/2 red Bell pepper (diced)

1/3 cup of fresh coriander

Dressing

2 tablespoons of rice vinegar

1/3 cup olive oil

1 tablespoon of lime juice (or lemon)

1 tablespoon of Cayenne pepper (optional)

salt and pepper

Preparation

1.Cook the peeled shrimp on the BBQ until they are pink (about two minutes) Reserve.

2. Mix all the dressing ingredients together.

3.Wash thoroughly the coriander and chop it up. Dice the mango, the green onion and the Bell pepper.

4. Mix all the ingredients together.

*For the dressing, you can play with the ingredients, add more oil, less lemon etc…

I like to serve my mango shrimp salad in Martini glasses, for some reason, it always taste better! 🙂

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nice summery asian shrimp salad

Know here’s a great recipe that is tasty and quick to make. All you need is that japanese Wafu sauce! I found mine in the grocery store, but you can also find it in asian grocery stores and fish shops…

A few years back, I was obsessed by a salad dressing that was served at one of my favorite sushi restaurants. Everytime I would ask the waitress what was in it, she would giggle behind her braces and say:”oh, secret recipe, cannot say“. Little did I know that the dressing was actually from a bottle, and it was called Wafu. I luckily stumbled upon this dressing a few years back, and for those of you who are familiar with Sushi Shop, they serve this sauce with their spring maki’s. So here’s a fresh, summery salad that is inspired by their Shrimp spring maki and it’s a whole bunch of yummyness!

Ingredients

Matane shrimp

1 cucumber

1 carrot

sesame seeds

Wafu dressing

Preparation

Toss it all together and voilà!

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Crunchy Chickpea salad

I still can’t beleive that I took this picture! How amazing is it!

This chickpea salad is great for picnics, Bbq’s, lunches, brunches, parties, etc. It’s quick, tasty and nutritious! I fry the chickpeas in a pan which gives them a lovely crunchy/nutty taste! You could eat the salad as a main dish or serve it with fish, sausages, chicken…

Ingredients

Olive oil

1 garlic clove

1 can of chickpeas (drained, rinsed, and very well dried)

1 teaspoon of kosher salt

Zest  (1/2 lemon)

1/2 red pepper

1/4 cup thickly grated parmesan cheese

1/2 cup of aragula

Dressing

1 teaspoon of balsamic vinegar glaze

1 teaspoon of dijon mustard

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 teaspoon of maple syrup

Procedure

Put the olive oil in a pan and heat over medium heat. Drop the garlic clove into the oil and cook a few minutes to infuse the flavor into the oil, remove it as it comes to temperature . Fry the chickpeas for about 5 minutes. They will go from looking like cooked chickpeas to toasted nuts – golden, and crunchy. Add the red pepper and cook for a few minutes.

Dice the cooked garlic clove and put into a bowl. Add the chickpeas and pepper and toss with salt, dressing, aragula, lemon zest and grated parmesan cheese.

Serve!

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