Category Archives: Lunch / Salads / Sides

  • Smoked Salmon Salad With Yogurt-Dill Dressing

    June 2, 2012

    10 Comments

    Smoked Salmon Salad With Yogurt-Dill Dressing.

    Memorial Day wekend is always a treat, but after a few days of stuffing our faces over-indulging we start to look for lighter fare. The garden and the farmers market always supply inspiration (and ingredients) but we also find plenty of simple, tasty recipes from other bloggers. And this is how we found this salad.

    We recently discovered Danish Hygge, a blog about Danish life (we are big fans of Scandanavian design). It includes all sort of posts and photos about Danish design, people and culture, but also has some recipes. They had a post on salad with seasonal vegetables in a yogurt and dill dressing and it seemed light, healthy and flavorful, so we decided to give it a try.

    Fresh radishes from the garden.

    The salad is a combination of greens, seasonal produce, smoked salmon and a “dressing” of dill and yogurt. Part of the fun of this salad is that you can add in almost any vegetable (even fruit) and get good flavors. In our case, we had radishes from our garden and early cucumbers and tomatoes from the farmers market and we always have carrots (ours still aren’t ready, sniff). As for the greens, our one recommendation is that you use sweet greens like butter lettuce, mache or even romaine rather than more bitter greens like arugula. The smoked salmon plays much better with sweet greens and the overall flavor of the salad is more harmonious.

    Ingredients. For the veggies, anything fresh will be good.

    We did tweak the recipe a bit to add more flavor. The dressing combines plain yogurt (nonfat or low-fat, we used low-fat), a bunch of fresh chopped dill, lemon juice, mustard, honey (or agave nectar), salt and pepper. We added a touch of hot sauce to the dressing to add a little heat and it worked very well. We also macerate a shallot in vinegar for a few minutes and then drizzle the slices over the salad. The sweet/sour nature of the macerated shallots are one of our favorite additions to salads and veggies.

    The salad itself has a mixture of crunchy, earthy flavors of the veggies, creamy/tangy dressing and salty smoky salmon. It is a satisfying lunch or a good starter salad at dinner. The salad tastes great and is healthy, too. Finally, the dressing is good as a sauce for grilled vegetables, so if you have extra, don’t let it go to waste.

    Smoked Salmon Salad With Yogurt-Dill Dressing:

    (Adapted from Danish Hygge)

    Notes Before You Start:

    • Other smoked fish like trout or sturgeon will work in this salad. We used a strong and smoky lox, but Nova or other lighter-smoke salmon will work.
    • Use whatever combination of fresh vegetables you like.

    What You Get: A healthy full-flavored salad. A dressing you can use with pretty much any vegetable.

    What You Need: No special equipment required.

    How Long: 10- 15 minutes depending on how many vegetables you chop. This is an anytime dish. Continue reading →

  • Dungeness Crab Salad With Avocado and Roasted Beets

    May 16, 2012

    6 Comments

    Dungeness Crab Salad With Avocado and Roasted Beets

    As spring moves into summer, some of our favorite ingredients start to fade away and we try to enjoy them before they are gone. One of these seasonal ingredients is Dungeness crab. The Dungeness is a medium-sized crab (about the size of a large salad plate) with a red shell and sweet, flaky flesh. Dungeness is very common in the pacific states and is even the “state crustacean” in Oregon (somehow I don’t think Nebraska has a state crustacean). Dungeness crab is considered a “sustainable” delicacy and there is plenty to go around while it’s in season. The Dungeness season lasts while the North Pacific ocean is very cold, from about November to June. And as we are in May, our time with the Dungeness this year is running short. We wanted to be sure to make at least one more good dish with the Dungeness crab.

    Happily, Carolyn recently got a copy of Suzanne Goin’s “Sunday Suppers at Lucques” cookbook and it has this great recipe for a Dungeness crab salad. In case you are curious, Suzanne Goin is a James Beard award-winning chef from Los Angeles and Lucques is her flagship restaurant (she is part of four). The cookbook is from 2005, but we just found it and are very pleased with the recipes. As Goin worked under Alice Waters (and a bunch of other serious chefs) early in her career, we see some similarities in their recipes, particularly with salads and vegetables. As we are big fans of Alice Waters’ vegetable recipes, this is a good thing. Many of the Lucques recipes seem like heartier updates to Chez Panisse classics. This is a compliment, trust us.

    As for the salad, the recipe combines crabmeat in a flavorful citrus and jalapeño vinaigrette with earthy roasted beets, sweet and creamy avocados and crisp, slightly bitter watercress. A drizzle of crème fraîche and cilantro (if you like cilantro) add brightness to the dish. The salad is very tasty and has that “restaurant quality” of tasting better than the sum of its parts. There are a bunch of good flavors and textures in this dish. Oh, and it’s a pretty healthy dish, too.

    Continue reading →