Méli-mélo croquant – Salade de printemps aux pois chiches frais, carottes naines et ricotta salée

After the seafood month, I thought it was about time to celebrate springs, at least in California. The beauty about California is that they grow a lot of fruits and vegetables and you get quite a lot of different varieties so it’s easy to eat local and get a healthy diet but most of all varied. It’s been raining quite a lot but then clears up and it’s a sign that springs is on its way.

Unfortunately France has been devastated with a lot of storms and floods, but the area where my parents live has been less severely affected.

After a trip to my favorite store last weekend, to the other side of the Bay, I saw that many springs vegetables were starting to be on the shelves, among those, some beautiful fresh chick peas in their green pod.

It has been a while I haven’t seen fresh chick peas, I remember my grandparents in Italy would grow them in the garden and my mom would eat them raw with a little salt, the same way you could eat fresh raw fava bean. So of course, I had to buy some, and of course I had to buy a lot. So more chick pea dishes are coming this way. Fresh chick peas can be eaten like the dry kind, and cook as fast as peas, so if you over cook them, they’ll get mushy.

There is usually one or sometimes two peas in one pod, unlike peas or fava beans. They’re delicious raw and have a sweet flavor that are delightful in salads. Round baby carrots are very sweet and flavorful and their crunchiness is perfect on a spring salad like this one where all ingredients are raw.

I remembered this wonderful salad in Tel Aviv where they had cut the cucumbers as sticks and left it unpeeled, so that’s what my cucumbers look like.

The vinaigrette is simple, I wanted a fresh, light and fruity vinaigrette that would enhance the natural flavors of all the ingredients therefore avocado oil combined with pomegranate vinegar did accentuate that particular delicious flavor you get in raw vegetables.

Ingredients for 2

For the salad

• 1/2 frisée salad
• 1/2 cup fresh chick peas
• 6 round baby carrots, peeled
• 6 purple baby carrots, peeled
• 2 radishes, paper thin sliced
• 4 Persian cucumbers, cut in sticks
• 1/2 avocado, sliced
• 1 tbs sunflower seeds

For the vinaigrette

• 3 tbs avocado oil
• 1 tbs pomegranate vinegar
• 1 tbs mint, chopped
• 1 tsp scallions, chopped
• salt and pepper

Preparation

For the vinaigrette, mix all ingredients together and mix well.

In a mixing bowl toss salad with some vinaigrette. Divide the salad in each plate, add the rest of the vegetables. Add ricotta salata on top, sprinkle with sunflower seeds. Top with remaining vinaigrette.

Express - Less than 30 minutes, Salads avocado, fresh chick peas, fresh garbanzo beans, frisee salad, ricotta, salad, sunflower seeds

Per il pranzo della domenica – Insalata di gamberi, rucola, finocchio e ceci

Happy Valentine’s day to everyone! Joyeuse St. Valentin!

Valentine’s day is not only the celebration of love but also of friendship, so I think everyone is concerned. It seems like the celebration goes back to antiquity in Greece where February was the month of love and fertility and when Zeus got married to Hera. Also during Roman times, this time of year, took place a celebration honoring Lupercus who was the God protector of fields and herds and February 14 was celebrated love and fertility. So we are perpetuating a very ancient celebration.

This Valentine’s day it’s muggy and grey and all you want to do is stay inside. After looking at what is going on on the the East Coast and the snow storms, I am thankful to have an overcast sky, and not be burried under the snow.  I used to have really terrible cabin fever when I lived in Boston and I am afraid I cannot handle extreme weather.

On Sunday morning, Valentine’s day or not, I like to get my croissants and pains au chocolat, it just happens occasionally but when it does, it’s a treat. So when you have that type of breakfast, lunches are usually on the light side.

I somehow love the combination and texture of this salad, the sweetness of chickpeas and fennel, the crunchiness of  the shrimps and the bitterness of arugula are blending harmoniously together…just like a happy couple. Valentine’s day for me is all about harmony, balance, and of course….love.

Ingredients for 2

• 1.5 cup arugula
• 12 large shrimps, peeled, deveined, and cut in half
• 150 g cooked chick peas
• 1/2 large fennel bulb, shaved
• 2 tbs red onions, finely chopped
• 2 tbs extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 garlic crushed
• orange champagne vinegar
• salt and pepper

Preparation

For the salad, mix arugula, fennel, chick peas, red onion together. Saute shrimps in a little olive oil, add salt and pepper and let them cool.

For the vinaigrette, combine oil, vinegar, garlic, salt and pepper. Mix well.

Add shrimps to the salad, add dressing and toss well. Grind some fresh black pepper and serve.

Fish/Seafood, Salads arugula, chick peas, fennel, garbanzo beans, salad, shrimps

La bonne salade aux lentilles de Tel Aviv – Salade de lentilles, roquette, betteraves à la feta et menthe

On my stay in Tel Aviv, I walked almost all over the city for five days…the weather was beautiful, it felt so much like summer to me so while France was snowed in, I enjoyed my five days as if it was the last time I would be in short sleeves and eat croissants on a terrace.

As much as Jerusalem had a magic light, Tel Aviv had amazing restaurants, I loved all of them, everything was fresh and exquisite and I got to explore the city and its great neighborhoods and specialties with my map (and my high heels, shameless to say). As bad as I get in orienting myself, sometimes I think I have a disease. I can drive or walk every day by the same place, without ever remembering it. Maybe the “tête en l’air” virus.

I did remember Ben Yehuda street and the green restaurant that had been intriguing me for days with its flashy green color. It was a colorful looking place that seemed to serve organic food and decided to give it a try. It was a mixture of a traditional Californian vegetarian cafe type of decor combined with a Mediterranean menu which intrigued me. Every item on the menu had a calorie count and was under 300 calories per dish. I was not aware that Israelis were that health conscious. I finally ordered the lentil salad not knowing what to expect and thinking how exciting a bowl of lentils could be? Well, it could certainly be very exciting! that was seriously the most, delicious, flavorful, healthy lentil dish salad I had in quite a long time.

I loved it so much, that I wanted to try to reproduce it from what I remembered and it turned out quite well. Who can say no to a one meal bowl full of nutrients with so little calories? Certainly not me.

Ingredients for 2

• about 5.30 oz  (or 150 g) green lentils
• 3 medium size beets (golden or red), cooked and diced
• 1 cup arugula
• 2 tbs feta, crumbled
• 2 tbs mint, chopped
• 2 scallions, chopped
• 2 tbs olive oil
• 1/3 tsp cumin powder
• juice of 1 lemon
• salt and pepper

Preparation

Cook lentils in salted water until cooked but not mushy. Drain and set aside.

Cook beets in water until tender, about 45 min. Let cool, then peel them. Cut in about 1 inches pieces and add to the lentils, then add arugula. Add mint and scallion and mix well.

In a bowl, mix cumin, olive oil and lemon juice, salt and pepper. Mix well.

Pour dressing on top of the salad and toss. Add feta and mix carefully.

Salads, Vegetarian - dairy arugula, beets, chick pea, feta, israel, jerusalem, lentils, mint, salad, tel aviv, vegetarian

Le fromage de la belle île – Salade de mâche aux poires grillées et haloumi – vinaigrette au thym et citron

I met haloumi cheese in the US, I never saw it in France nor Italy. Maybe because France has about 400 kinds of cheeses, so they don’t have any lacking in that category, you can eat one different cheese a day for one year! Isn’t that wonderful? I am wondering how they were able to come up with so many cheeses. Italian cheeses are great but they don’t have as a many varieties as the French. Even though I am not a huge cheese eater like most French people, I really enjoy and appreciate good cheese with great crunchy baguette. But this is not about French or Italian cheeses but about Cyprus and its wonderful haloumi.

The particularity of this cheese is that it can be grilled and as I said comes from Cyprus, that little Mediterranean Island, even though it’s been considered European, it’s closer to Turkey and Syria. The Northern part has been occupied by Turkey since 1974, I guess there must be a heavy Turkish population and influence. So haloumi is becoming more and more popular in the Mediterranean countries. It’s traditionally made with a mixture of goat and sheep milks and has a somehow salty taste. I really like it on salads with pears or grapes, but it needs to be served as soon as you grill it or the cheese tends to become rubbery when it cools down.

Mâche salad is one of my favorite, it’s soft and tender and my parents used to grow it in their garden, so I remember when I came back from school my mom had always a huge bowl ready for me. The good thing is when you buy it, it’s already cleaned, so you don’t have to go crazy cleaning the earth that got inside the leaves. The washing and cleaning process is not an easy one.

Ingredients for 2

• 1.5 cups mâche salad
• 5 oz (or 140 g) haloumi, sliced 1 cm thick (3 slices per plate)
• 1 large pear not overly ripe, peeled and sliced
• 3 tbs olive oil
• 1 tbs lemon juice
• 1 tsp fresh thyme, chopped
• salt and pepper

Preparation

First prepare vinaigrette, by mixing lemon juice, olive oil, thyme, salt and pepper together. Then, grill pears in a grill pan, then set aside. Grill haloumi.

In a plate, place some mâche, top with one slice of pear alternating with one slice of haloumi and drizzle with vinaigrette.

You can make extra vinaigrette and toss some salad in it, then with the rest you can drizzle on top of pear and haloumi slices.

Salads, Vegetarian - dairy grilled pears, haloumi, mache, pears, salad

Come la torre di Pisa – Torre con granchio, pompelmo, avocado, melagrana e crescione

I have wanted one of those rings where you make salad towers for so long and could not find any…after digging Sur La Table, I finally found one completely random since it was hiding in the spatula and spoon section. I was as excited as if I found some gold nugget! I love that store, I can spend hours just looking at every little item. They do have a lot of gadgets but in that respect I am a kitchen utensil geek. Not that I have a lot, because I don’t have any more room in my kitchen and when you have no more space available, the rule should be “you buy something new, you throw away something old” but I cannot throw anything away, I always feel I would need it at some point, I get so attached to my kitchen tools that the kitchen is filled with everything new, old, useless, and useful, and even broken.

A friend of mine came for dinner and she brought me a couple of beautiful pomegranates, she calls them jewels…and they do look like jewels, like little rubys. So I had to use them. Besides, we went out for dinner a couple of weeks ago in a nice Italian restaurant, and we got so disappointed by their crab salad (the crab was canned, and I hate canned crab), it was sitting on top of some sad romaines leaves and sprinkled with cheese! Cheese and crab don’t go with my tastes. Some Italian restaurants should stop trying to please Americans and offer them authentic cuisine instead. I am sure Americans would love it. I think they’re the most adaptable people when food is concerned because they’re so exposed to different cuisines. Honestly that so-called “crab salad” was basically a Cesar salad with canned crab (and believe me Cesar did not eat that salad).

Actually I noticed that many restaurants do use canned crab! what a shame! (and not cheep joints, nice restaurants that I will not bad mouth but it bugs me). I would charge a little more for the salad, but would use fresh crab! Some restaurants are cutting corners where they should absolutely not do it. So anyway, I promised my friend I would make her a nice crab salad with lots of fresh ingredients that would make her forget about the precarious one we had.

I love grapefruit so much with crab, smoked salmon and shrimps in salad, that this tower has somehow become my signature crab salad. It’s fruity, flavorful and so refreshing. You can also use shrimps and smoke salmon as I mentioned if you cannot find crab. It has a different twist but it’s as good. Also pomegranate vinegar is a must, it really enhances the salad beautifully.

Ingredients for 4

• 1.5 lb king crab legs
• 1 red grapefruit, quarters peeled
• 1 pomegranate
• 1 avocado, sliced
• 1 bunch watercress
• 1 endive, chopped crosswise

For the vinaigrette

• 3 tbs olive oil
• 1 tsp pomegranate vinegar
• 1 tsp grapefruit juice
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tbs chives, chopped
• cayenne pepper
• salt and pepper

Preparation

For the vinaigrette, combine all ingredients together and mix well.

First remove crab meat from its shells. Remove excess water and set aside.

Wash endive and watercress. Cut endives and remove stems from watercress, keeping the leaves.

Cut pomegranate lengthwise and remove seeds.

Using ring, place some crab at the bottom of the plate, add a layer of avocado, drizzle with vinaigrette. Add 2 quarters of grapefruit, some pomegranate seeds, endives and watercress and add a little vinaigrette. Press firmly so that tower will stand still. Start again with a second layer of the same ingredients.

Remove ring and decorate with some pomegranate seeds and vinaigrette around the tower.

Fish/Seafood, Salads avocado, crab, endive, grapefruit, king crab, pomegrante, salad, seafood, watercress

Pour le brunch du dimanche…ou pas – mouillettes avec salade de tomates, roquette, et carottes jaunes roulées à la pancetta

In France we don’t have something called brunch, we either have breakfast or lunch. Brunch is an Anglo-saxon concept, and I like it.

There is a restaurant in Sausalito (San Francisco North Bay), called Le Garage where I really like to have my brunches on Sunday, it’s facing the marina and has a huge outside patio, they serve really good mouillettes with prosciutto and asparagus.

Mouillette in French means a small and long piece of bread you dip in oeuf à la coque. Oeuf à la coque literally means Egg in its shell, implying with soft yolk. If the yolk is hard, then it becomes oeuf dur (hard egg). The English translation I found for oeuf à la coque is boiled egg, but I don’t think it’s really that accurate. Oeuf à la coque is a part of every French kid childhood and I remember mine with those two eggs waiting for me on the kitchen table before I would leave for school in the morning.

What’s great about mouillettes is that you can add any side dish you like and make a great brunch with all kinds of combination you like.

I found the cutest mini yellow carrots at the Berkeley Bowl and had to buy them, so then ended up wrapped in pancetta, not a bad way to end. You can also use asparagus instead of carrots, they’re great too, or serve it with thinly sliced prosciutto, you can use your imagination and combine ingredients you like.

Ingredients for 2

• 4 eggs
• 2 heirloom tomato
• 2 cups rucola
• 6 small yellow carrots
• 6 slices pancetta
• rock salt
• Kosher salt and pepper
• 2 tbs olive oil
• 1/2 tsp balsamic vinegar
• parmigiano reggiano shaved
• Grilled baguette cut in  3 inches long sticks

Preparation

For the eggs

Place eggs in a pot of water, start counting 3 minutes from the time the water starts boiling. Remove from pot (it’s better to cook the eggs at the end).

For the carrots

Boil carrots in water, when cooked wrap one slice of pancetta around, add pepper and place under broiler until all sides are grilled.

For the tomatoes

Cut tomatoes in small cubes, add olive oil, toss and sprinkle with rock salt and pepper

For the salad

Sprinkle rucola with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, a little salt, and shave some parmesan on top.

Serve each item in a large plate, dip your mouillettes in the egg and enjoy!

Breakfast/Brunch, Salads, Vegetarian - dairy carrots, eegs, pancetta, Recipes, rucola, tomatoes

L’été vient de commencer à San Francisco  - Salade de mâche, fenouil et oranges à la vinaigrette d’agrumes

I was wondering why americans are not too fond of fennel and anis, liquorice, etc…Maybe it’s a flavor they were not used to growing up. I don’t know. The first time I tasted a mango, a Cambodian friend of mine had me try it, I must have been 12-13 years old, and I hated it. I thought it tasted like detergent powder and I had to spit it out. Well, years have passed, and luckily, my tastes have changed, and I love mango now! Funny how the palate that had not been exposed to something, reacts in an “unfriendly” way.

I remember one summer in Italy at the neighbor’s house, she served a salad of oranges as appetizer and I was somehow reluctant to eat it since I never ate oranges that way, but I thought that would be a great idea only  if this would taste good…and it did. The salad was fresh, with a nice peppery dressing. I loved it. I have seen a similar way to serve oranges in Moroccan cuisine, and I loved the idea.

Mâche salad is becoming trendy again, and besides from its pleasant flavor, it has lots of vitamin C, vitamin E, antioxydants and Omega 3! So a great nutritional little salad to be consumed without moderation.

Ingredients for 2

• 1 juicy navel orange, sliced crosswise
• 2 cups mâche
• 1 fennel bulb, cut in small cubes
• kalamata olives

For the vinaigrette

• 3 tbs olive oil
• 1 tsp orange juice
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp raspberry vinegar
• 1/3 tsp cumin powder
• salt and pepper

Preparation

Wash fennel, and cut in small cubes. You can cut the stems as well, it adds some nice color. Peel orange, and cut crosswise, cut off the border. Wash mâche.

For the vinaigrette, mix ingredients together. Add some vinaigrette to the mâche and mix well.

Place some salad at the bottom of the plate, top with fennel, and oranges. Add olives on top. Sprinkle with remaining vinaigrette.

Salads fennel, olives, orange, Recipes, Salads, Vegan

Le saumon qui voulait être une aiguillette – Aiguillettes de saumon au sésame marinées au gingembre et soja, salade mixte à la vinaigrette de citron et coriandre

After coming back from New Orleans, I stuffed my fridge with fish and seafood, and it’s almost reaching to an end…I feel so much better when I have light lunches like this one, I get extra energy for the rest of the day.

San Francisco has been quite gloomy lately, the fog has a tough time disappearing and the wind makes you feel like you are in winter. We all know that San Francisco weather is what it is in summer, so I will stop complaining…but still I do enjoy the hot summer nights where you can wear tank tops and can sip a anything you want in a restaurant patio without worrying about the wind blowing your napkin away.

I used sockeye wild salmon for this salad, after reading that farm raised salmon has been injected with artificial color to get that orangey-pinky color, I got a little reluctant to get farm raised salmon. My dilemma is that by fishing in the oceans, wild species, we contribute to its extinction, and maybe one day there will be no more fishes in the oceans. Obviously wild salmon tastes much better and sockeye salmon has such a beautiful deep red color, but at what cost do we want to contribute to destruction the of the environment?

It’s something that has been bothering me and I will have to do more research on the subject. 

Anyway, if you are anti-wild salmon for environmental reasons and feel comfortable consuming farm raised salmon, it’s up to you, I don’t want to eat artificial coloring if no need to.

Ingredients for 2

For the salmon and marinade

• 1/2 lb of salmon fillet
• 1 tbs shoyu or soy sauce
• 1 tbs balsamic vinegar
• 1 small piece ginger, grated
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tbs sesame seeds
• sichuan pepper

For the salad

• 1 carrot, cut in strips
• 1/2 lb cherry medley tomatoes
• 6 radishes
• 1/4 red onion, finely chopped

For the vinaigrette

• 2 tbs extra virgin olive oil
• Juice of one lemon
• 1 tbs cilantro, finely chopped
• salt and pepper

Preparation

Marinate salmon in marinade ingredients for about 4 hours. Cut in thin strips, add sesame seeds and broil in oven for a few minutes.

For the carrots, you can use a potato peeler to get those thin strips, if the strips are too wide, cut them in half lengthwise. Slice radishes in thin slices. Mix the rest of the ingredients all together. Add vinaigrette and toss. Keep some vinaigrette to sprinkle on top of the salmon.

When salmon is cooked, plate with some salad in the middle of the plate and salmon strips on top. Sprinkle with remaining vinaigrette.

Appetizers, Fish/Seafood, Salads carrots, cilantro, fish, radishes, Recipes, salad, salmon, sesame

Carciofino, come mi sei mancato!…insalata di carciofi, gamberi, farro e rucola

Beautiful artichokes are one of my favorite vegetables, especially the baby ones…they’re small, tender, and make beautiful and delicious dishes. The only draw back is the preparation, and trimming, since it can take some time to remove the hard leaves and trim them, some people prefer to use easier to prepare vegetables. In French we say, quand on aime on ne compte pas, when you love, you don’t count, which is somehow the way I go along withe life and cuisine in general. What count is the result, not really the time spent in the kitchen (obviously when you have time).

The great thing about California, is that you get many fruits and vegetable locally grown so that availability of fresh and organic produces is huge. 

In France we have similar baby artichokes but they’re purple and are called artichauts poivrade, very popular in the South of France, Italy and Spain.

My mom always brings form Italy cases of artichokes from my uncle’s garden, she keeps them half-cooked in jars, filled with olive oil, garlic and herbs and uses them to put on top of pizza or to eat as is as antipasto, with prosciutto. Those can be preserved that way for over 6 months and are delicious, crunchy, full of flavors since they’re infused in olive oil and herbs.

The other wonderful ingredient in this recipe is the Farro (or spelt), it’s the Italian name of the grain, also used in English. In France it’s called épeautre and is one of the oldest grain, very rich in protein and cultivated in Italy at the foot of the Alps in a region called Garfagnana. It is a very robust plant that grows in tough climate and is resistant to cold, therefore, its culture does not need pesticides and other chemical such as wheat does, that’s why Italian farro is a part of organic agriculture.

Ingredients for 2

• 10 large uncooked shrimps
• 1/2 lb farro
• 2 hanful rucola
• 10 small baby artichokes
• 10 cherry tomatoes
• 1 garlic clove, chopped
• 3 tbs dry white wine
• salt and pepper

For the vinaigrette

• 2 tbs avocado oil
• 1 tbs orange-champagne vinegar (or any other citrus vinegar)
• 1 tbs chopped basil
• 1 garlic crushed

Preparation

Cook farro in 3 times its quantity of water for about 20-25 minutes. Drain and set aside.

Trim the artichokes removing the outside leaves and cutting the tip of the heart to keep just the tender and yellowish heart. Cut in quarters and place in a bowled filled with water and lemon juice to prevent the artichokes from darkening.

Saute artichokes with garlic in olive oil, stir and add white wine, salt and pepper. Cover and cook until the artichokes are tender. 

Saute shrimps in olive oil salt and pepper.

In a salad bowl, mix farro, artichokes, shrimps, let it cool a little, then add tomatoes and rucola.

For the vinaigrette, mix all ingredients together, mix well and add to the salad. Toss and serve.

Appetizers, Fish/Seafood, Grains, Salads artichokes, farro, Recipes, rucola, salad, shrimps

Plaisir d’été – Salade de fèves, poivrons grillés, feta et menthe sur carpaccio de tomates

It looks like summer is coming…at least in San Francisco, it might be a false alarm, but I am in such a summer mood those days. Today is a very hot day, sunny, no wind (what a day for the city, the wind is part of every day life and sometimes I wish it would stop), so a perfect day for a light, crunchy and flavorful salad. Today was the Bay-to-breaker run in San Francisco and the city was very empty for a Saturday afternoon…I hope no one fainted with this heat.

Fava beans have been a part of my diet since I was a child. Italians are very fond of it, my mom used to eat it with its skin on and some salt. When they’re small you can keep the skin, but the ones you buy on the stores tend to have a thick skin, so you have to remove it. They’re high in protein, light and a wonderful bean to use with pasta, salad, or side dishes.

Ingredients for 2

• 2 tomatoes
• 1/2 lb fava beans
• 2 tbs feta
• 1/2 red bell pepper
• 1 tbs mint
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1 tbs avocado oil
• tabasco
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• salt and pepper

Preparation

Roast red belle pepper in the broiler. Peel and cut in small squares. 

Remove beans from pods, and cook them in boiling water for about 3 minutes. Drain and peel. To remove then skin, it’s quite easy, the skin is think but comes out by itself. Place peeled fava bean in a bowl, add, feta, red peppers, mint, tabasco, garlic, salt and pepper. Mix well.

Slice the tomatoes thinly with a slicer, drizzle some avocado oil, salt and pepper and place nicely in a plate. Spoon the fava bean salad on top and serve with toasted country bred.

Express - Less than 30 minutes, Salads, Vegetarian - dairy Recipes