Hello everyone!
It is an absolute joy to be hitting a season where lots of lovely veg is starting to creep in - I’ve been eating my first tomatoes, aubergines and peppers of the season, and it feels fabulous. In this issue, I’m going to show you a couple of hearty salads you can make with the bounties of the season. You are getting puttanesca in salad form, and a romesco chicken salad heavily inspired by one I ate in Copenhagen (minus the chicken).
A reminder too that tickets are still available for some of the stops on my book tour - you can nab those here.
Also, Waterstones is running a competition where you can win a load of crockery thrifted by me! All you need to do to enter is to pre-order my book by midnight on 12th June. You can do so here.
The Recipes
Puttanesca-ish Tomato and Anchovy Salad
Serves 2
I love the flavours of a puttanesca (this will not surprise long-time readers - I seem to weave it in here all the time), and in the build up to tomato season, I have been dreaming of eating it in salad form. It’s a bit like a panzanella, with the bread and the tomatoes, but with anchovies, olives and capers too. This recipe is SO QUICK and minimal, but requires buying good quality ingredients. Isle of Wight Tomatoes are great at this time of year, and are the ones I use at home. A good extra virgin olive oil would also not go amiss here.
2 chunky slices of sourdough bread
250g good quality tomatoes
1 banana shallot
1 tbsp parsley leaves
1 tsp sherry vinegar
a tin of good quality anchovies
60g pitted kalamata olives
25g capers
salt, pepper and olive oil
Heat your oven to 180°C fan.
Cut your sourdough bread into chunky cubes, then get them into a baking tray. Drizzle over some olive oil and a pinch of salt, and toss to coat. Bake them in the oven for 8-10 minutes, or until they are golden and crispy.
Cut your tomatoes into chunks, then pop them into a sieve set over a bowl. Add a pinch of salt, then leave them to sit for 10 minutes.
Peel and very finely dice your shallot. Finely chop your parsley too.
To your tomato juices that have collected under the bowl, gradually whisk in about 4 tbsp of olive oil. Add your sherry vinegar, as well as your diced shallot and parsley, then give it a good mix. Get your tomatoes, anchovies, olives and capers into the bowl, as well as your croutons. Adjust the seasoning to taste.
Spoon your salad into bowls, then add a little black pepper. Serve it up.
Romesco Chicken Salad with Almond Picada
In Copenhagen a few weeks back, I ate a very lovely salad at Villette, involving lots of buttery leaves dressed in romesco sauce. Romesco is a Catalonian sauce made from roasted peppers, nuts (normally almonds), garlic, oil and vinegar. It is gorgeous with fish, or roasted vegetables, but also with chicken. Basically, it is an all rounder, and a really lovely condiment to have in your fridge.
You can buy bone in chicken thighs from the shops and remove the bone yourself, or most butchers will sell them with the skins on but the bone removed. It is totally up to you which you choose. You do need the skins though - crispy chicken skin, and the liquid gold fat that spools of out it, are what provide so much of the flavour of this dish.
Almond picada is a garnish is learnt to make when working at Quo Vadis, and it is HEAVENLY - really toasted almonds with garlic, that you can sprinkle on most meals to make them better.
Serves 4