Chapter 6 : I Made a Salad!
I Made a Salad! Here it is.
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| The pre-mix version of it |
So? What's the big deal? You may ask. Well, it may be a small deal for you, but definitely a big one for me. Like Neil Armstrong said, "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." I'm no Neil Armstrong, but you get the point, I believe. See, I'm not even used to having salads for a meal, let alone preparing it. Before I tell you more about the salad, let me provide some context.
Growing up in Kerala and spending some years in Hyderabad, the regular cuisine and styles of the places formed my staple diet. I would go exploring new cuisines, but I always saw salads as an accompaniment rather than a full meal. As a child, salads where when diced onions, carrots and/or tomatoes, sliced green chillies were mixed in loose curd and maybe some salt and a dash of coriander leaves on top. Raita, people also called it, I learned in Hyderabad. You ate it with biryani, ghee rice, etc., along with fellow accompaniers such as pickle, chutney, or pappad. Somehow, I could never digest the idea of salads as a whole meal. Get it? 'Digest' I said. LOML (Laughing Out Mentally Loud)!
I flinched at the thought that some greens, some fruit and vegetable slices, some oil or dressing on top, all of it mostly raw (yes, my major objection was the being-uncooked bit of it), could become a meal for anyone. I mocked people who said they had a salad or who suggested I could have a salad saying "That's not a meal!". The first time I had a proper salad was during a restaurant buffet a couple of years ago. I remember it being delicious, but since it was a buffet, I moved on. Recently, I got a box of macaroni salad from the Food Bank nearby (where low-income people can go get food once a month - a great Canadian initiative and a great help, especially when you aren't financially stable, jobless and frantically searching). Finished it over the course of three days - the cheesy, creamy goodness and simplicity of it astounded me. I still continued to be hesitant about making a salad by myself.
Enough with the historical context and confessions. I'll get to the salad at present.
I noticed in the mirror last week looking at myself and found digitally on the weighing machine that I have gained back 5 kilos of the 10 I lost on a target of 15. The double chin and the love handles were back and smiling. I was stress eating during the last couple of months. Time to take action. Back to regular workout and slight food control. This and a little push from a vital force in my life lead me to the salad.
As I was walking along the fruit and vegetable aisles at Walmart, I was like a lost and overwhelmed child. I was Harry Potter on his first visit to Diagon Alley. I hadn't ever seen some of the things displayed there. I mostly use pulses and meat for my meals. Did a quick search on the Buzzfeed link that I had bookmarked (find it here) and picked an iceberg lettuce, cucumber, apples, and a bell pepper. Also got extra virgin olive oil, caeser salad dressing, and some walnut chunks.
That evening, I made pasta and potato. Salad came the next day. I decided not to follow any specific recipe and just go by instinct and a base structure provided on the BuzzFeed article - base + something crunchy + something soft + something unexpected + protein + dressing = salad.
As I picked it up the lettuce, a question popped into my mind. What do I do with the stem? Watched a YouTube video on washing and prepping lettuce. After slicing off the stem, I followed the '64 Method' of cutting (half, then halve the halves, then halve the halves, and so on...), then diced it to decent sized pieces. In order for the pieces to look uneven and random shaped, it kept rotating the lettuce with my fingers after every cut. Put the whole thing in a colander, washed under cold water, softly squeezed out some moisture, put it in a bowl, transferred some onto a plate. Base, done.
The next step was apple. Diced half of an apple (ate the rest then and there - I was hungry) put it on top of the lettuce. Something crunchy, check. Used mozzarella slices for 'something soft'. For 'unexpected' I chose two things - hummus and green chilli. Added half a tablespoon of hummus (which I had never used from the day I bought it) and one whole green chilli, evenly sliced. Walnut chunks for protein. Caesar salad dressing, olive oil, and a dash of salt and pepper completed the prep.
I mixed the whole thing slowly and ate the salad while I played an episode of 'Brooklyn 99' on Netflix. It was definitely tasty. I did like it a lot. The only thing that tasted out of place was one of my 'something unexpecteds' - the green chilli. The harmony of the salad was greatly disturbed by the sudden spicy bite. I made a mental note of it. Did not really feel full in the end, so had a nectarine as well.
I'm happy that I finally added 'salad' to my list of culinary experiments. I will try new combinations and recipes. If there are any that I really like, I'll try and share the recipe (don't worry, the posts won't be this long). You could also suggest me your favourite salad recipes and tips.
I made a salad! Here ends the tale.
Enough with the historical context and confessions. I'll get to the salad at present.
I noticed in the mirror last week looking at myself and found digitally on the weighing machine that I have gained back 5 kilos of the 10 I lost on a target of 15. The double chin and the love handles were back and smiling. I was stress eating during the last couple of months. Time to take action. Back to regular workout and slight food control. This and a little push from a vital force in my life lead me to the salad.
As I was walking along the fruit and vegetable aisles at Walmart, I was like a lost and overwhelmed child. I was Harry Potter on his first visit to Diagon Alley. I hadn't ever seen some of the things displayed there. I mostly use pulses and meat for my meals. Did a quick search on the Buzzfeed link that I had bookmarked (find it here) and picked an iceberg lettuce, cucumber, apples, and a bell pepper. Also got extra virgin olive oil, caeser salad dressing, and some walnut chunks.
That evening, I made pasta and potato. Salad came the next day. I decided not to follow any specific recipe and just go by instinct and a base structure provided on the BuzzFeed article - base + something crunchy + something soft + something unexpected + protein + dressing = salad.
As I picked it up the lettuce, a question popped into my mind. What do I do with the stem? Watched a YouTube video on washing and prepping lettuce. After slicing off the stem, I followed the '64 Method' of cutting (half, then halve the halves, then halve the halves, and so on...), then diced it to decent sized pieces. In order for the pieces to look uneven and random shaped, it kept rotating the lettuce with my fingers after every cut. Put the whole thing in a colander, washed under cold water, softly squeezed out some moisture, put it in a bowl, transferred some onto a plate. Base, done.
The next step was apple. Diced half of an apple (ate the rest then and there - I was hungry) put it on top of the lettuce. Something crunchy, check. Used mozzarella slices for 'something soft'. For 'unexpected' I chose two things - hummus and green chilli. Added half a tablespoon of hummus (which I had never used from the day I bought it) and one whole green chilli, evenly sliced. Walnut chunks for protein. Caesar salad dressing, olive oil, and a dash of salt and pepper completed the prep.
I mixed the whole thing slowly and ate the salad while I played an episode of 'Brooklyn 99' on Netflix. It was definitely tasty. I did like it a lot. The only thing that tasted out of place was one of my 'something unexpecteds' - the green chilli. The harmony of the salad was greatly disturbed by the sudden spicy bite. I made a mental note of it. Did not really feel full in the end, so had a nectarine as well.
I'm happy that I finally added 'salad' to my list of culinary experiments. I will try new combinations and recipes. If there are any that I really like, I'll try and share the recipe (don't worry, the posts won't be this long). You could also suggest me your favourite salad recipes and tips.
I made a salad! Here ends the tale.
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