A Surplus of Salads

I think I went a little bit overboard on the salads last Shabbat - I made six or seven different salads for just one meal!

To explain: Three families were getting together, for a grand total of 10 hungry people, for lunch, with everyone contributing something. I drew the salad(s).

Family One contributed all of the meat: Lamb and beef. And not just any old lamb, mind you. Lamb they had watched being slaughtered (okay, just the husband watched). We have a member of our community who is a shochet, and if asked he'll kill a lamb or chicken or two for friends every now and then. Hey, it's the only way to get fresh lamb in our community, since the only two sources of fresh kosher meat we have - a Target and a kosher market - don't stock fresh lamb (well the market does get in fresh lamb, but it freezes it immediately and refuses to even call you when it comes in if you want to go get a pound or two - nor will they grind it for you).

Unfortunately our friend had also frozen the lamb. Bummer.

Bigger bummer - he has this wonderful lamb, and his wife won't eat lamb. It's almost like she's a vegetablearian or something. Thus the contribution of six pounds of pot roast, to complement the three racks of lamb ribs.

Family Two got the job of cooking the meat (plus they made fish and provided the drinks, both hard and soft).

So, as I said, we got the salads ... and the Challah (which my wife baked).

Let's see: there was broccoli cole slaw, pasta/bean salad, marinated asparagus salad, spinach salad, a spectacular eggplant/pepper salad and, for desert .... what else? ... a fruit salad.

Now I've got to admit I bought a bag of already-shredded brocolli stems and carrot, so the broccoli slaw really wasn't all my doing. But I did dice the apples that went into it. But the walnuts I used weren't in the shell, they were bought already chopped (you got me!). And hey, I didn't dry the grapes to make the raisins either, I must confess.

Toss with a dressing - mayo, rice vinegar (I've been using that a lot these days, in place of either wine vinegar or cider vinegar - the rice is a LOT milder and has a less vinegary taste), sugar, a little salt if you must. Simplicity itself.

Next the pasta/bean salad. The recipe came right off the can of the Westbrae salad beans that I used (thank you Westbrae for all the certified kosher beans). Well, almost right off the label. I've made a few changes over time. In fact enough changes so that one of these days I'll do a post just discussing the bean salad.

Hmm...In that case, maybe I won't even bother to go through the ingredients: Just click on the picture tand you can see them all:

And here's the finished product:
Next up, the asparagus.

Now this is real simplicity. Cook (being careful not to overcook ... I simply nuked the poor things for a few minutes), cool, and pour on some marinade (I used plain old bottled Italian dressing if I'm lazy or in a hurry).

Chill overnight. Wonderful!

The spinach salad is almost as easy, the way I make it. Simply slice up a red onion (thin slices), and toss in a bunch of sliced mushrooms. I used the brown baby bellas, but white would work just as well. Of course all sorts of other yummy things could be added to the salad - peppers, various greens, maybe some chopped hard boiled eggs. But remember, this is a half dozen salads I'm making, and I still needed time to make our own Friday night Shabbat dinner (a modest affair of Tuna salad with deviled eggs on red leaf letttuce, chicken noodle soup with matzoh balls, a chicken with mushroom stuffing and a salad).

When it's time to eat, toss the spinach salad with dressing (If you put it on in advance, say the night before, it will marinate. Yuck.) - I prefer Italian (indeed the same as the dressing I used for the asparagus), or perhaps some vinegar, oil and spices - and maybe a handful or two of your favorite croutons.

And now, the real tour de force, and eggplant and pepper salad. This one is a bit more work than any of the others, but worth every minute. AND it counts toward my 100 eggplant dishes.

First the eggplant is sliced (perhaps three slices to the inch), salted, and left to sit for an hour or so. Next it's rinsed off and dried. The slices are then fried in hot olive oil. Not too hot, mind you, or the eggplant will burn before cooking through. And don't be trying to cheat and use some other oil. We're talking FLAVOR here, not just something to fry with. Then drain the fried eggplant slices and arrange on a platter in a single layer (well, you can overlap a little bit if you have to in order to fit all the slices).

Next, the eggplant is sprinkled with some vinegar (did I mention I'm using rice vinegar a lot these days? Well, for this too, although I guess no self-respecting Middle East cooking traditionalist would agree.) Perhaps two or three tablespoons of vinegar for two eggplants that weigh a little less than a pound each.

Now comes a fun part ... sautee sliced garlic in the left over olive oil. For the aforementioned two eggplants I used eight or ten cloves of garlic, which is almost twice what some folk do. But I'm a garlic freak. Careful, don't let them burn, just get a nice golden brown. Then sprinkle them on the eggplant.

Finally, we fry WHOLE peppers in the olive oil. They could be all green, or some green and red, or yellow, or whatever color you like. Just fry them until they're browned nicely and soft. Then drain, cool a bit, cut open, and get rid of the seeds and stem. Finally, cut the pepper into the strips, which go on top of the eggplant and garlic. Pure salad artistry, if I do say so myself.

And for desert, as I said before, what else could there be but another salad? A fruit salad.

By now, worn out, it had to be something simple. So I simply cut a couple of pineapples in half, took out the core, sliced up the fruit, and put it back in the shell. The wife pitched in and made some canteloupe melon balls. Oh and then we threw in handfuls of grapes. Ah, and sliced up some strawberries. As I said ... something simple.

The Kosher Kook shows off his simple fruit salad.