Salads – Meenal Jhala

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Today’s recipe is delicious as well as healthy. Khaman Kakdi or cucumber salad is made in Gujarati and Maharashtrian homes. It’s an ideal summer dish made with cucumbers, peanuts and coconut.

Cucumbers which contain 95% water help hydrate the body and keep it youthful and fresh looking.

We eat a lot of salads at home. This recipe is one of my favourite salad recipes. And although it’s easy to make it tastes so good that you can impress your guests with it. Khaman Kakdi is also eaten when people fast and is called faraal food.

Serve this dish with an Indian meal. You may also want to eat it as just a salad.

Khaman Kakdi

Serves 3-4

3 medium sized cucumbers

3/4 teaspoon salt or salt to taste

1/2 teacup peanuts

2 tablespoons freshly grated coconut

1 teaspoon roughly ground pepper

1 teaspoon sugar

Juice of 1 lemon

Some finely chopped coriander

1 -2 finely chopped green chillies (optional)

1 Chop the cucumbers into cubes. Add the salt. Gently squeeze out the water. Keep aside.

2 Roast the peanuts till they are fragrant and have spots on them. Then coarsely grind them. Mix the peanuts with the cubed cucumbers.

3. Add the freshly grated coconut, coarsely ground pepper, sugar, and lemon juice to the peanut and cubed cucumber mix. Give the dish a good mix.

4. Sprinkle with finely chopped coriander and green chillies. Serve immediately or after keeping in the fridge for an hour.

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This salad is from the Middle East. A region known for its warmth and hospitality. It is made with olive oil and olives and other delicious yet easily available ingredients that make it taste exotic. Certainly like nothing I’d tasted before, especially in an Indian salad.

The recipe is from Rawia Bishara’s cookbook Olives, Lemons and Zaatar. Rawia is a Palestinian Arab, now settled in New York and owns a popular restaurant there called Tanoreen. She opened her restaurant in 1998, as a tribute to her mother who she says was not rigidly authentic in her cooking and often bent the rules with her creativity. This she admires greatly in her mother, and at Tanoreen she celebrates tradition and embraces change in her cooking. She says “ Cooking is so very personal- use your imagination, intuition, and most importantly, taste buds”.

Tanoreen Potato Salad

Serves 6

15 small red potatoes in 2.5 cms dice

2 tablespoons chopped garlic

1 tablespoon sea salt

120 ml extra virgin olive oil

Juice of 2 lemons

80 gms chopped fresh leaf parsley

6 spring onions, green parts only, chopped

30 gms finely diced green pepper

30 gms finely diced red pepper

2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon ground paprika

Garnish

50 gms chopped green olives

3 tablespoons chopped coriander

Place the potatoes in a large saucepan with enough water to cover. Bring to the boil and cook over a medium-high heat until a cocktail stick slides easily into a piece but doesn’t cause the potato to fall apart, 7-10 minutes. Transfer to a colander to drain, then rinse under cold water. Spread the potatoes on a baking sheet to cool.

Combine the garlic and salt in the bottom of a mixing bowl. Using a fork, mash the garlic into a paste. Add the oil and lemon juice with the parsley, spring onions, green pepper and red peppers, mint, cumin, black pepper and paprika; mix to combine. Tip in the potatoes and using a wooden spoon, toss gently until thoroughly coated with the dressing. Transfer to a serving dish and garnish with the olives and coriander.