Salads for the arayes

In this post, I described the amazing Lebanese sandwiches - arayes. To go with them we made a couple of salads. Water melons, tomatoes and local feta seemed to be the way to go. Home made yogurt, home grown mint made a good tzatziki. All in all pretty tasty. The dishes were:

Watermelon, watercress, feta and pistachio salad
Cucumber, tomato and onion salad
Tzatziki

The tzatziki quantities are approximate. Also, the tzatziki needs at least 2 hours in the refrigerator for the flavors to combine.

Ingredients - Watermelon salad

3 cups cubed watermelon (cubed like this)

1 bunch watercress

5 oz feta chopped into 1/4" cubes

1 cup pistachios, roughly chopped

Juice of 1 1/2 lemons

6T Extra Virgin Olive Oil (the best finishing oil you have)

Coarse salt to taste

Method

Combine everything except the salt. Add the coarse salt just before serving, so that the juices don't run out of the melon.

Ingredients - Cucumber, onion, tomato salad

A few lettuce leaves 

3 small cucumbers, peeled, seeded, 14" pieces

2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved

1 slice of white onion, 14" thick chopped finely

juice of 1/2 lemon

4T Extra Virgin Olive Oil (again the best that you have)

Coarse sea salt added just before serving.

Method

Line a salad bowl with the lettuce leaves. Combine tomatoes, cucumber, onion in a bowl, add the lemon juice. Just before serving, toss in some coarse salt and stir. Add to the serving bowl that has the lettuce leaves liner.

Ingredients - Tzatziki

3 cloves garlic - mashed to a paste

1 1/2 cups strained (Greek) yogurt

Handful of mint leaves chopped finely

3T white wine vinegar

1t tahini

1/2 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil (the best you have)

salt to taste

Method

Mix the garlic into the yogurt. Add the mint leaves, vinegar, tahini and oil. Stir throughly and check the seasoning. You may need to add a little salt. Chill for at least 2 hours.

Watermelon and Halloumi

We did a Mediterranean themed party, so who better to turn to for inspiration than Michael Symon. So while this is actually using a Cypriot cheese, it fit the bill nicely.  It is a pretty simple recipe, but it tasted outstanding. None left :-(

Refreshing, tangy, tasty and pretty. You can find the original here. I didn't change it up much.

Ingredients

1 small shallot, minced

1 medium clove garlic mashed

kosher salt

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

2 T honey

1/2 cup high quality, extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup slivered almonds, toasted
4 T chopped mint

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

24 x 1" diameter 3/8" thick rounds cut from the core of a seedless watermelon
24 x 1" diameter 3/8 thick rounds of halloumi
2T vegetable oil
Rice flour/water slurry to coat the halloumi

Method

Mash the garlic with a little salt to make a paste. Place the shallot and garlic in a bowl. Add the vinegar and honey, Mix well. Whisk in the extra virgin olive oil. Add the almonds and mint, stir well.

Place the watermelon rounds in a single layer in the bottom of an 8x13 non reactive dish. Pour the mixed dressing over the watermelon. Allow to rest for at least an hour and up to 3.hours.

Coat the individual halloumi rounds with a little rice flour slurry. Heat up a cast iron pan over medium heat with the 2T of vegetable oil. Test temperature of pan with a few drops of water.

When hot enough, place the halloumi on the pan in a single layer. When you have laid out the last round, the first round will be ready to flip.

Once the halloumi rounds are cooked, remove from pan and place on top of the watermelon, serve immediately

Watermelon

This is just crazy good. The "Watermelon Ninja" demonstrates a no-mess way of cutting up watermelon. I can't do it any more justice than simply posting a link here.

Watermelon and feta salad

This goes nicely with grilled meat. We just happened to have some on Friday night - done on the big green egg (I told you I would become an egg bore).

Ingredients

6 cups watermelon cut into 3/4" cubes. Drained

7 oz crumbled Feta (use the real Greek, sheep's milk Feta) 

Juice of 1 lime

1/4 cup Extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup finely chopped mint

1/4 cup toasted sunflower seeds

salt/pepper to taste.

Put the watermelon and crumbled feta into a salad bowl. Whisk the lime juice and oil, add the mint and pour over the feta/watermelon. Toss (hands are best) gently until the melon is coated. Add the sunflower seeds. Toss again. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Check the seasoning and adjust with salt/pepper as necessary.

Grilled watermelon and chicken thighs

Yes, I realise that this is an odd title, but it is hard to come up with anything different.
It is now officially hot in Texas, so we typically avoid adding heat inside the kitchen and use the grill for just about everything. Tonight's dinner was no exception. And, as usual there are leftovers: The dinner was a salad of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, potatoes, grilled chicken and grilled watermelon. Sounds odd, I admit! But it did get the "we can serve this to people" accolade from Madame, so all is well.
Why thighs and not breasts? They are much easier to cook without drying out - more forgiving and more flavorful. Yes they are fattier, but we embrace the inner fat in this house. Flavor rules!
Also we typically don't dress our salads directly. We cook potatoes, dress them while hot and then use the dressed potatoes as the dressing for the salad overall. It is one way to make sure you don't overdress the salad. Oh, and since it is as fast to make a dressing as it is to open a bottle, the dressings are all home made. Where to start?

Ingredients

Potatoes

2 lbs waxy potatoes with the skins on

water to cover

salt

Dressing

1/4 cup cider vinegar

3T Sherry vinegar

1 small shallot - minced

1/2 t dry mustard

salt

pepper

3/4 cup neutral oil

2T Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Watermelon

6 watermelon wedges

oil to lightly coat - prevent sticking on the grill

salt/pepper to taste

Chicken

6 Boneless/skinless chicken thighs

1/2t Hungarian paprika

1/2t Cayenne Pepper

1/2t Cumin

1T coarse salt

a few grinds of pepper

Seeds from 6 cardamom pods

1/4 t dried oregano

Salad

A few lettuce leaves torn into bite sized pieces

6 small tomatoes (not cherry or grape sized - larger than that, and nice and ripe), each cut into eighths

1 small cucumber peeled and chopped so the pieces are the same size as the tomatoes

Coarse sea salt

Method

Potatoes

Quarter the potatoes. Place in cold, salted water in a saucepot. Bring to a simmer. and cook until fork tender, but not mushy. Drain the potatoes. While still warm pour the dressing over the potatoes and allow to come to room temperature

Dressing

Combine all ingredients, except oils into a glass jar. Shake to mix. Add the oils, and shake again to emulsify. Use immediately. However it will keep in the fridge for a week or so.

Watermelon

Season the watermelon with salt/pepper and brush with oil. Grill for about 3 minutes each side. Serve slightly warm

Chicken

Pat the chicken thighs dry. make up the rub by vombining the spices in a pestle and mortar, grinding until a fine, uniform powder. Coat the chicken with the spice mixture and allow to stand while the grill heats up. When the grill is hot, grill the chicken thighs for about 5 min/side until they are cooked through. Remove from the grill, allow to stand for a few minutes before slicing thinly across the grain.

Assembly

Lay some lettuce leaves in the bottom of an individual salad bowl. Mix in the tomatoes/cucumber. Decorate with the chicken slices. Add some dressed potatoes to the salad, place 2 grilled watermelon wedges on top, and serve.

It looks like a lot of work, but from start to finish this took the requisite 45 minutes.

Compressed watermelon

One morning we were having breakfast at Sustenio in San Antonio when this thing that looked like a piece of raw tuna showed up. It was a about1"x2" in cross section and 6" long. Looked like a lot of raw fish and at breakfast? Hmmm
And then I had a piece of it. It turned out to be compressed watermelon, infused lightly with pickled ginger. Compressing the ginger expels some of the water (flavourless) and then any flavourings are reabsorbed. Clever stuff.
So on the phone to Chef Gilbert - "is this doable at home?" using a regular vacuum "FoodSaver" rig. His simple answer - "yes, go for it".

So here goes:

Ingredients

1 Watermelon (using the flesh near the skin only) - total weight 10-12 lbs

12" piece of fresh ginger - juiced. I chopped it finely and used a citrus juicer

Same volume Agave nectar as ginger juice

Method

Peel the water melon and slice into batons about 1/2" square and 3" long. Place batons into a vacuum bag in a single layer. Divide the ginger liquid evenly among the bags. Massage very lightly to ensure that the liquid is evenly spread across the watermelon in the bag.

Vacuum and double seal the bags. You will notice liquid being sucked out of the melon. Some may go into the channel. Don't worry too much that is easy to clean.

Refrigerate for at least 12 and preferably 24 hours.

Notes

This is amazingly flavourfull. You get a very firmly textured watermelon with the flavors permeating each piece. The watermelon flavour stays with you for an hour or so. 

Clever and simple.

Thanks Dave