Grilled vegetable salad

Here is a nice and light lunch for you for the weekend. It's easy and very quick to make, and so very tasty. I bought quite a lot of manchego cheese in Spain. It's a delicious sheep cheese, with a lot of flavour. For this salad you could really use any kind of flavourful cheese. Pecorino would be delicious, but otherwise Parmesan in flakes. You can vary the vegetables as well; try portobello mushrooms or aubergine.



Grilled vegetable salad (serves 2)

1 courgette
1 red bell pepper (NL: paprika)
1 large onion, red or yellow
some salad leaves, eg. rucola, baby spinach
good extra virgin olive oil
balsamic vinegar (around 2-3 tablespoons per portion)
flakes of sea salt
freshly ground pepper
manchego, or other strong cheese

* heat a grilling pan, so it's nice and hot. in the meantime:
* cut the courgette in half and then in 5 mm thin slices (along the length)
* cut the paprika in 1 cm strips
* cut the onion in quarters and cut these in half again, so you have 8 parts
* brush the vegetables with enough oil, so they are all coated with a thin layer (you can also do this with your fingers)
* place veggies into the hot pan and keep turning them over
* lower the heat a little bit, so they won't burn
* place the salad leaves on a plate, sprinkle with a little bit of oil and arrange the vegetables on top
* drizzle over a little balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper
* put some flakes of cheese on top
* and have a nice glass of cold white wine with it!

Tunnbrödsrulle - Swedish wrap with real potato salad

On nearly every street corner in Sweden you will find some sort of a 'gatukök' - literally a street kitchen, where you can buy different kinds of snack food. The most common is a grilled hot dog, optionally served with a prawn salad and roasted onions. It is the weirdest combo, but tastes pretty good - especially at 3 AM in the morning when you are so drunk that you can hardly stand on your legs. This of course never happened to me, and if it did - hey, I'm just trying to integrate with Swedish culture.



Anyway, you can also get Swedish wraps. Much healthier and also easy to make at home. The wrap is made of 'tunnbröd', which is a thin and soft bread. The most common tunnbrödsrulle is served with roast beef and potato salad. I love these, and I happened to have some roast beef left over. I made the potato salad myself: much tastier and you spare yourself from a lot of E-numbers.



Potato salad (serves 4)

500 g waxy potatoes (NL: vastkokend), unpeeled
4 big tablespoons low fat sour cream/crème fraiche
1 big tablespoon mayonnaise
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
handful of parsley, chopped
3 tablespoons chopped chives (NL: bieslook)
1 red onion, finely chopped

* cut the potatoes in even sized chunks
* boil them in salted water until just tender when pierced with a knife, around 15-20 minutes
* in the meantime: stir 4 big tablespoons of crème fraiche, 1 big tablespoon of mayonnaise, 1 teaspoon mustard, a handful of chopped parsley, 3 tablespoons of chopped chives and plenty of salt and pepper together
* when the potatoes are ready, discard the water and let the potatoes cool down until you can easily touch them
* remove the skins and cut the potatoes in slices of 1-2 cm
* carefully stir in 1 finely chopped red onion and the crème fraiche mixture
* leave to rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour

This potato salad is also great when you have a barbecue and you can easily make a bigger amount. Don't serve it ice cold - take it out of the fridge a while before serving.

Tunnbrödsrulle

To make the tunnbrödsrulle you simple fill a soft bread (or a tortilla; softened in the microwave) with some roast beef, potato salad and rucola. If you want to do it the 'gatukök' way, skip the rucola and add some roasted onions, ketchup and mustard. Roll it up and eat!

Moroccan Tomato and Cucumber Salad

Whilst a butternut squash is mixing its flavours with some onion, garlic and coriander to form a beautiful soup, I will tell you about something completely different. The soup's recipe will follow later!

Remember that I made a couscous plate a few days ago? I also made a tomato and cucumber salad that is amazingly good. I think it's the roasted cumin that does the trick, but this salad is really quite special.
The recipe comes from a cookbook that I found in a discount book store in London. I have made several recipes from it and they all turned out deliciously. The book is called Feast Bazaar, by Barry Véra, and is about food from India, Morocco and Syria. A rather strange combination, geographically seen, but it's a great book.



Morrocan Tomato and Cucumber Salad (serves 4)
(adapted recipe from Feast Bazaar by Barry Véga)

1 teaspoon cumin seeds
6 roma (plum) tomatoes (make sure they are ripe and smell good)
1 cucumber
1 red onion
1 green capsicum pepper (NL/S: paprika) (I used a red one instead)
1 handful chopped flat-leaf parsley
4 tablespoons lemon juice
100 ml olive oil
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

step 1
* heat a frying pan over medium heat and add 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
* dry-roast the seeds for 2 minutes on medium heat, while stirring
* place in a mortar and pestle (NL: vijzel, S: mortel) and grind to powder

step 2
* cut 6 tomatoes in 4 quarters, cut the seeds out and cut the tomatoes in dices
* cut the cucumber in half, scoop the seeds out with a teaspoon and cut the cucumber in dices
* finely dice the red onion and cut the paprika in dices
* put all this in a serving bowl

step 3
* chop a handful of parsley
* put parsley, ground cumin, 4 tablespoons lemon juice and 100 ml olive together in a bowl
* stir thoroughly
* pour the dressing over the vegetables and mix well
* add salt and pepper to taste

You can serve this salad as a side dish to accompany grilled fish or meat, or with couscous. It's also nice to serve as a starter together with some bread, or as part of some various 'mezzes' (small dishes).