Product Description

Salads are at long last taking center stage in the kitchen and around the table.

Not just a side dish anymore, they have become light, wholesome meals that satisfy even the heartiest of appetites, showcasing seasonal vegetables, grilled meats, cheeses, and more. In Salads, celebrated chef Peter Gordon provides endless inspiration for the perfect warm-weather dish through combinations of fresh flavors and contrasting textures. Each chapter is brimming with both classic and novel approaches to the main-course salad based on vegetables, cheese, meat, poultry, and fish, and there are even chapters devoted to canapé and dessert salads. Refreshing new combinations include:

•Watermelon, Feta, and Basil Salad with Pumpkin Seeds on Shrimp Crackers

•Crayfish, Avocado, Grapefruit, and Ginger Salad

•Poached Chicken, Hazelnut, Watercress, and Pea Salad

•Thai-Style Beef Salad with Cilantro, Mint, Lime, and Peanuts

•Broiled Banana and Mango Salad with Vanilla-Poached Peach


In addition to his irresistible recipes, Gordon identifies the essential elements of an ideal salad, offering ways to add “crunch,” advice on seasonings, and a range of garnishes and basic dressings. Packed with stunning photographs and Gordon’s accessible, down-to-earth techniques, Salads breathes new life into this classic dish.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1341946 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-02
• Released on: 2006-05-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780307338815
• Condition: USED - VERY GOOD
• Notes:
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
With an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to salad-making, the author, a British fusion chef, whips up salads that range from the deliciously adventurous to the extensively bizarre. Asparagus, Baby Potato, Arugula, Basil and Watercress Salad is a tasty springtime mélange light enough to serve as a luncheon appetizer but tasty enough to eat by the bowlful. In the same spirit, the Ceviche of Cod with Cucumber, Lime, Tomatillo, Basil and Mint is bracing and substantial, an appetite-whetter or a main course on its own. On the other hand, a Revolutionary Russian Salad never quite comes together; the combination of beans, peas, tongue and lobster seems forced instead of organic. A Warm Duck Leg Salad is similarly overwrought. The recipes sometimes feature hard-to-find ingredients, such as the arame in the Herb and Olive Oil Poached Squid Salad, and while the author does suggest "hijiki or other dried or fresh seaweeds" as a substitute, these ingredients are not widely available. Finally, the author would have done well to include a few classic salads. While it's nice to know the proper proportions for a Salad of Asparagus with Artichokes, Purslane, Pomegranate and Beets, sometimes a Caesar fits the bill just as well.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author
Peter Gordon is co-owner and executive chef of London’s Providores and Tapa Room, which won the Square Meal Best New Restaurant Award. He is also a consultant chef at the James Beard Award–winning restaurant Public in New York City, and has appeared on the TV series Nigel Slater’s Real Food and Jamie Oliver’s Oliver’s Twist. He has written three previous cookbooks.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Tuna, Quinoa, Wild Arugula, Olive, and Blackened Tomato Salad with Chopped Egg and Parsley Dressing

INGREDIENTS:

--6 tomatoes
--4 to 5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
--small handful of basil leaves, torn
--Three-fourths (.75) cup quinoa grains
--4 tuna steaks, each about 6 ounces, skin and bones removed
--salt and freshly ground black peppers
--2 large handfuls of assorted olives
--2 large handfuls of wild arugula leaves

For the chopped egg and parsley dressing:

--4 eggs
--small handful of parsley leaves, roughly chopped
--2 tablespoons capers
--2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
--4 tablespoons lemon juice

TO PREPARE:

Note: This salad takes as its spiritual grandmother salade niçoise, using those lovely, small black niçoise olives. Quinoa is an ancient Inca grain, full of all the world’s goodness. Almost forgotten until recently, it has begun to appear again in whole food stores and on restaurant menus.


Cut the tomatoes across into slices about half-inch thick and brush each with a little of the oil. Heat a heavy pan and, when it’s smoking, add the tomatoes in a single layer and cook over a high heat to blacken a little, one and one-half to 2 minutes. Using a heat-proof spatula, remove the slices to a plate and continue to cook the remaining slices. If any bits stick to the pan, scrape them off and wipe the pan. Once all the tomatoes are cooked, scatter the basil over them and drizzle with a teaspoon of oil.

Bring 1 quart of water to a boil in a pan. Place the quinoa in a very fine strainer and give it a rinse under warm running water for 30 seconds. Add the quinoa to the boiling water and cook at a rapid boil for 12 to 15 minutes. It will be cooked when it begins to unwrap—rather like a spiral unfolding. Taste a few of the grains after 10 minutes and, once cooked, drain through a fine strainer, then spread out on a plate to cool down. The quinoa will remain slightly crunchy and nutty, and it’s this texture that makes it so fabulous.

Brush the tuna with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil, lightly season it, and leave it out at room temperature for 10 minutes, covered with plastic wrap.

Make the chopped egg and parsley dressing. Place the eggs in a pan of boiling water and boil for 5 minutes, then drain and place in a bowl of iced water to cool them completely. Shell the eggs, then roughly chop or grate them and place in a bowl with the parsley, capers, and the olive oil.

Heat the pan or broiler again and, when hot, place the tuna in, or under, it and cook briefly. Tuna is best served rare to medium-rare—any more and it can become dry. However, if you like your fish overcooked and awful, then, by all means, cook it so. Just don’t say I told you to. For a steak that’s three-quarters of an inch thick, to cook it medium-rare in a hot pan will take about 2 minutes on the first side, then flip it over and cook for a minute longer.

To serve

Place the olives, arugula, and quinoa in a large bowl, lightly season, add the remaining olive oil, and gently mix. Lay the tomato slices on 4 plates and divide the arugula salad on top of them, then top with a piece of tuna. Mix the lemon juice into the egg dressing and spoon this over as you serve the salad.

Customer Reviews

Awesome, creative ideas...
The salads in this book are combinations of ingredients I was not familiar with but with the little extra effort I made delicious "gourmet" salads and learned a little more about different kinds of vegetables and oils / vinegars.

I have made 4 salads so far: Soba noodle salad with tofu, mushrooms, smoked paprika, cumin almonds, bok choy with wasabi dressing; warm salad of Chorizo, olives, potatoes, peas, and green beans with aruggula and cripsy onion rings (my favorite so far, hand made beer-battered onion rings); thai-styled beef salad with cilantro, mint, lime, and peanuts; chicken, shrimp, avacado, pecan and mango salad with baby gem, watercress, and sprouts.

What I like most about the recipes is its daring approach of ingredients and they are healthy, natural ingredients, lots of rich dark greens with one-of-a kind dressings. Most recipes probably need about an hour or so prep time so plan accordingly.