LETTUCE WITH EVERYTHING

 

Caged lettuce.

I'm harvesting lettuce from the huerta! After two years without a garden, abandoned when rampaging wild boars dug up the tomatoes, I'm picking lettuce from a tiny fenced-in plot. With flowering tomato and squash plants, there is promise of more to come.

I’m making lettuce salad with everything! Tomatoes, peppers, onions, chickpeas, avocado, radish, corn, carrots, tuna, olives, capers, cheese, eggs--- But I am compartmentalizing these ingredients, setting up a “salad bar,” so that each person can add-on to please themselves. 

The freshly picked lettuce (6 cups, loosely packed, torn leaves) is simply dressed with ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil, 1 tablespoon Sherry vinegar, and flaky salt. 

Lettuce with only extra virgin olive oil and vinegar.

On the side I’m serving a chopped salad of tomatoes, peppers, and onions, known as pipirrana, that can be heaped on the lettuce like a chunky dressing. Alongside are bowls of other accoutrements that guests can add as desired. 

This spread includes sliced radishes, corn kernels, mackerel fillets in olive oil, asparagus, artichoke hearts, olives, capers, grated carrots, chickpeas, queso fresco (fresh goat cheese), and fried croutons. 

Other salad additions: cooked green beans, cooked and diced potatoes, carrots, and beets; other legumes (butter beans are good); pasta, rice or other grains,  diced ham or chicken; anchovies, avocado, yogurt, pumpkin seeds, nuts, fruits.     

The "dressing" for the lettuce is the chopped salad of tomatoes, peppers, and onions.

Compose your own salad with a variety of ingredients.

Asparagus and goat cheese make a good combo.

Chickpeas, capers, radishes, crispy croutons, lots of cucumber in the chopped salad. Needs some mint and a dollop of yogurt to make it Middle Eastern in flavor.

No raw onions for this kid! He's picked the cherry tomatoes out of the chopped salad, added corn and shredded carrots.

Salad lunch, my everything salad--lettuce, mackerel, artichokes (garden), olives, radishes, chopped salad for dressing.

Tomato-Pepper Chopped Salad/Relish

Pipirrana

Vary the basic pipirrana, adding fewer or more ingredients. For example, if your people don’t like raw onion, just leave it out. Add corn kernels for more color and crunch. Capers for briny tang. All together they perk up the plain lettuce. 

Chopped parsley is the usual addition to pipirrana, but other fresh herbs can be used as well. Try basil, cilantro, mint, or tarragon.

The salad can be prepared in advance. Salt will draw the juices out of the chopped vegetables, creating the “dressing” for the lettuce. (The juices are also good sopped up with bread.) Save some of the fresh herbs to add immediately before serving.

1 cup chopped tomatoes or quartered cherry tomatoes

1 cup chopped green peppers

½ cup chopped red bell peppers

1 cup peeled and diced cucumber

½ cup chopped scallions or onions

1-2 minced cloves garlic

1-2 chopped hard-boiled eggs

3 tablespoons chopped parsley

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1-2 tablespoons Sherry vinegar

1 ½ teaspoons salt

Chopped avocado (optional)

¼ cup corn kernels (optional)

2 tablespoons drained capers (optional)

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix gently. If not serving immediately, cover the salad and refrigerate up to 24 hours.

Notes from a salad maven;  Your knife should be sharp enough to cut the skin of a tomato. Even after some honing, my everyday knife didn't make the cut. So, in honor of this salad, I brought out a new knife. What a pleasure! 

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With the next batch of lettuce from the huerta I’m going to try this take on gazpacho, Lechuga en caldo, lettuce in "broth," a recipe from Me Sabe a Málaga (“tastes like Málaga"). It’s chopped lettuce, olive oil, minced garlic, lemon juice or vinegar combined in a bowl with cold water to cover the lettuce, a sprig of mint to garnish. Serve with bread for dunking.

More salad ideas:

Moroccan Tomato Salad (Pipirrana). 

Catalan Escarole and Cod Salad with Romesco (Xató).

Spanish Mixed Salad.

SALAD DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN!

Ensalada mixta--a family-sized salad.

Garden alert! The lettuce is bolting! Yikes! Make salad. Make two salads. Make more salads. Warm weather shoots the lettuce to flower, precipitating an onslaught of salad days.

No complaints, really. I happily eat a huge salad for lunch every day. Huge, as in a whole lettuce just for me. With additions of other vegetables, both raw and cooked, and a bit of tuna, cooked chicken, hard-cooked egg or cheese I turn salad into a complete meal.

The Spanish ensalada mixta, or mixed salad, is a big production, served as a starter for a family meal. This is a “table salad,” served on a big platter and meant to be shared amongst the diners round the table. In traditional style, everybody eats from the serving dish, rather than dish out individual servings.

Tuna in olive oil.

A bed of shredded lettuce—usually romaine, but can include leaf lettuce or escarole as well—covers the platter. On top go tomato wedges (my garden tomatoes are still months away, so now these come from the market),  chunks of canned tuna (actually, I’ve started using bonito del norte, albacore tuna, packed in olive oil); quartered hard-cooked egg, onions sliced lengthwise; grated carrot, olives and canned white asparagus.

Canned white asparagus.

Optional additions are diced cucumber, strips of green pepper, canned corn (not for me!), pickled beets, sliced avocado.

Someone at the table does the honors of dressing the salad—lots of extra virgin olive oil and a little white wine vinegar are drizzled over the salad. Salt. That’s it. No garlic and no herbs except for a hint of thyme and fennel in the home-cured olives. Unlike a Greek salad, no cheese. And, no, don’t toss the salad.

Dress salad with olive oil and vinegar.

Just reach your fork over the platter and spear a juicy tomato, a chunk of tuna. A piece of bread in the other hand helps to scoop up forkfuls of salad. When most of the salad has been eaten, use the bread to soak up the oil and juices at the bottom of the platter—sort of instant gazpacho.

As much as I enjoy the simplicity of ensalada mixta, for my lunchtime salads I am more likely to make a slightly more complex vinaigrette. Here’s a recipe I like with a mixed vegetable salad—sliced new potatoes, cooked beans, tomatoes and greens.

Yogurt vinaigrette dressing.

Yogurt Vinaigrette

¼ cup no-fat plain yogurt
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
½ tablespoon wine or Sherry vinegar
minced garlic (optional)
chopped herbs (optional)
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Combine all the ingredients in a small bowl and whisk together. Makes enough for a large salad or two smaller ones. Dressing keeps, covered and refrigerated, up to 2 days.

Oh, happy salad days!