Country Salad Delicious
November 18, 2009
Inspired by last evening’s conversation with Lidia Bastianich and the two new cookbooks autographed “To Anita and D….Enjoy! Lidia” I decided to select a couple of her recipes for this evening’s dinner. I didn’t make it past page 12 in Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy before I found the first dish, Insalata Paesana or Country Salad. One of the things I love about Lidia’s cooking is that more often than not it’s simple cooking with the minimal number of fresh ingredients, and by simple I don’t mean plain, blah, or ordinary. Her dishes are often complex in flavor but she allows the ingredients to create the complexity more than a series of wanna-impress techniques. Great food always begins with great ingredients and then it’s left to the home cook or celebrity chef not to muck them up.
And that’s the case with this salad that combines briefly boiled cauliflower florets, boiled and diced red potatoes, radishes, apples, red onions, toasted walnuts, a perfect pile of cubed Asiago cheese, Italian parsley, and a quick dressing of olive oil, cider vinegar and kosher salt. The crunch of the apples, walnuts, and radishes combined with the tender potatoes, cauliflower and cheese makes for a wonderful contrast of textures and then there’s this equally amazing harmony of flavors with the salty richness of the Asiago and tart sweetness of the parsley. The salad makes for a low-fat and healthy side dish (I pared down the amount cheese, olive oil and walnuts from the amounts recommended) or for a satisfying stand-alone meal. I had it solo for lunch and will be feasting on it again with equal enthusiasm at dinner.
I haven’t included the recipe in this post because I’m still looking into copyright law when it comes to sharing published recipes on blogs but this is one of those great recipes that in knowing the basic ingredients nearly anyone who can find their kitchen can create a close and tasty facsimile.
Posted in Apron Adventures, Food
December 15th, 2009 at 10:05 am
Hi – would you please let me know what the recipe for Lidia’s Country Salad is? I was watching one of the early morning Saturday tv networks when she was on and she told everyone what the ingredients were. I can’t remember which network it was and I didn’t write it down but they stated you could go and click on their link and get this recipe. PLEASE send me the recipe – it looks so healthy and I LOVE caulifauer or however the heck you spell it! This has radishes too, right? I’ve been looking all over the web sites and can’t find it. Is it in one of her books? THANK YOU AND MERRY CHRISTmas!!!
December 15th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Maraloy–> It is THE best salad ever! It’s called “Country Salad” and is in her book “Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy.” Unfortunately as I understand it I can’t print the exact recipe due to copyright laws however I listed all the primary ingredients in this post and yes, radishes are in it as are apples and potatoes, nuts and cheese. I’ve fixed it for several people who normally don’t like cauliflower and everyone who’s had it begs for the recipe. The entire book is filled with equally wonderful recipes so I can’t recommend getting a copy of her book enough. The link above will also take you to her website for additional recipes that she does have online.