Salad days

Summer's here......it's time to start thinking about summer eating and little ways to spice it up! This week we at the Spicery have been on the salads. The definition of salad according to the Oxford English is as follows:

Salad (noun) - 'a cold dish of various mixtures of raw or cooked vegetables, usually seasoned with oil, vinegar, or other dressing and sometimes accompanied by meat, fish, or other ingredients'

It's a little bit of a vague definition but with a little bit of imagination salads don't have to be just the basic cucumber, lettuce and tomato! They can be served warm or cold, full of raw or cooked vegetables or fruits (or a combinations of both) seasoned with fresh herbs, flavoured vinegars or oils and dried spices (which is where the Spicery can come in!) just as long as the flavours and textures work together. Salads particularly lend themselves to Middle Eastern flavours with the Fattoush below being a firm favourite - it's a mixture of any fresh salad veg you might have to hand (we used cucumber, tomatoes, radish and spring onions), toasted pitta bread and sumac. By roasting vegetables you can caramelise the outside of them to coax out a bit of sweetness. Adding spices like cumin, coriander, chilli or caraway can give more depth of flavour and turn your salad into something really special. The salad below is made up of roasted onion and courgette with a tin of chickpeas, a glug of olive oil and a bit of feta cheese. Pretty simple but effective! More salad ideas to follow but it the meantime feel free to email us with any of your favourite spicy summer salads at kitchen@thespicery.com