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.

FAREWELL TO FAVAS

The last of the fava beans.

Only a handful of fava beans remains to be picked in my garden patch. I’m usually inundated with them, but this year I only planted a few. There’s never enough maturing at the same time to make a satisfying serving. 

On a TV food show I watched a segment filmed in a tapas bar in Jamilena, a town in Jaén province (Andalusia). The cook was making a variation of pipirrana, a chopped “salad,” called “machacao,” that was finished with a scattering of raw fava beans. Machacao is Andaluz for “machacado,” meaning "crushed." The dressing is prepared by crushing egg yolks, garlic, green pepper, bread and olive oil in a mortar or in a wooden bowl called a dornillo.

The pipirrana of Jaén is more of a mojete or remojón—what I call “dunking salad,” meant to be served with lots of bread for sopping up the juices. Pipirrana is usually a summer dish, a relative of gazpacho, served chilled for a light supper. In the springtime, before tomatoes are in season, some of the tomatoes are replaced with oranges. The favas are another springtime touch.

Chopped salad is topped with chunks of tuna and fava beans. 

A "dunking salad," meant to be served with chunks of bread for soaking up the garlicky dressing and tomato juices.

With tuna and egg as well as bread, the salad makes a complete meal.

Blanch and peel favas.

Freshly-picked fava beans can be eaten raw with just a sprinkling of salt. However, they’re best if, after shelling, they are briefly blanched in boiling water and the outer skins of the beans are removed. No favas? Use fresh peas instead, raw, if they are freshly picked, or blanched if they’ve been waiting in a grocery store bin. 

Add the juices from chopping tomatoes and oranges to the salad. Allow the salad to stand 30 minutes to further draw out the juices. If desired, add a little cold water to make it even soupier. Serve the salad with a spoon and chunks of bread for dunking. 

The “mashed” dressing is really garlicky! You could decrease the quantity of garlic or blanch several cloves of garlic to make them less intrusive.

Use as much canned tuna as you like to top the salad. For this quantity of tomatoes and mashed dressing I used two 70-gram cans. 

For an authentic Jaén pipirrana, you would use a good Picual extra virgin olive oil, a fruity oil with a piquant finish.

Chopped Salad with Fava Beans

Machacao con Habas

Orange as well as tomatoes in this springtime salad.

1 cup shelled fava beans

1 slice bread

2 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped

1 teaspoon coarse salt 

2 hard-boiled eggs

1 green pepper

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 cups peeled and chopped tomatoes

1 cup chopped orange (optional)

½ cup diced cucumber (optional)

3 tablespoons chopped scallions 

Salt to taste

Water (optional)

Canned tuna

Bread, to serve

Blanch the fava beans in boiling water for 15 seconds. Drain them and refresh under cold water. Slit the outer skins and gently squeeze out the beans. Discard skins. Reserve the beans.

Soak the bread in water to cover until it is softened. Squeeze out the water and discard the crusts. Reserve ¼ cup of mashed bread pulp. 

Mash garlic, bread and egg yolks in mortar. 

Place the garlic in a mortar or wooden bowl with the coarse salt. Grind and crush the garlic until smooth. Peel the eggs and separate the yolks and whites. Add the yolks to the mortar and reserve the whites. 

Use a vegetable peeler to peel some of the green pepper. Cut a 2-inch piece of pepper, chop it, and add to the mortar. Reserve the remaining pepper. Add the pulped bread to the mortar. 

Mash the bread, egg yolks and green pepper with the garlic to make a paste. Using the pestle, stir a spoonful of oil into the paste until it is absorbed. Add another spoonful. Continue adding oil and stirring until the sauce is thickened and emulsified. 

Chopped tomato, orange, pepper and egg whites.

Chop the reserved egg whites. Chop enough reserved green pepper to make 2/3 cup. Place whites and pepper in a bowl. Add the tomatoes, orange and cucumber, if using. Add the scallions. Gently stir in the garlic sauce. Taste and add salt if needed.

Chill the salad, if desired. Otherwise, allow to stand 30 minutes. To serve, place the salad in a bowl and top with chunks of drained tuna. Scatter reserved fava beans on top. Serve the salad accompanied by bread. 

More recipes with fava beans here.

More versions of pipirrana:

Fresh Tomato and Pepper Salad.

Gazpacho Salad.

Moroccan Chopped Tomato Salad.

More "dunking" salads (mojetes) here.

CELEBRATE SUMMERTIME WITH AL FRESCO SALADS

Pipirrana is a summertime al fresco salad.

What a gorgeous early summer we’re having here in southern Spain. Temperatures are below average and a fresh breeze (a levante, east wind) is blowing. Cooler weather means the garden is slow to produce. Tomatoes and peppers are still weeks away.

Meanwhile, I have pots of cherry tomatoes and freshly dug onions and garlic. Local markets have early crops of tomatoes, peppers and cukes. They entice me to make some of Spain’s great al fresco salads.

This one, pipirrana, in Andalusia is a favorite at tapa bars. It’s basically a chopped salad of tomatoes, green peppers, spring onions and cucumber. As a tapa it may be garnished with canned tuna, chopped serrano ham or hard-cooked egg. Without the garnishes, it makes a fresh side dish with fried fish or with foods from the grill (add pipirrana to your 4th of July menu). And, with water added, the pipirrana, accompanied by bread for sopping, makes a simple sort of gazpacho.

A salad served in tapa bars.

I’ve enjoyed the identical salad in Morocco, just across the Straits of Gibraltar from Spain, as an accompaniment to street food such as brochettes. There it is made with cilantro (coriander leaves) instead of parsley and with just a hint of chile.

With the addition of shrimp, mussels, octopus or fish roe (huevas), basic pipirrana salad is transformed into salpicón de mariscos, a fresh seafood cocktail, widely served in tapa bars (that recipe is  here).

Piparrana is the perfect accompaniment to fried fish. These are boquerones, fresh anchovies.

Pipirrana
Fresh Tomato and Pepper Salad

Chop all the vegetables in small dice. The salad is best made shortly before serving. Leftovers can be refrigerated.

Serves 6.

4 cups chopped tomatoes (about 2 ½ pounds)
½ cup chopped onion (preferably spring onions with some of the green tops)
1 cup chopped green bell pepper (about 1 pepper)
1 cup peeled and chopped cucumber (about ½ cucumber)
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
¼ teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon wine vinegar
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3-ounce can tuna, drained (optional)
1 hard-boiled egg, chopped (optional)

Combine the chopped tomatoes, onions, peppers, cucumber and garlic in a bowl. Sprinkle with the salt, parsley and cumin. Drizzle with the vinegar and oil and toss the salad gently. Arrange it on a platter. Garnish the top with chunks of tuna and chopped egg, if using.

Rosado--the perfect al fresco wine.