20/02/2024
As promised, here is a guide to build your own salad. You will need
1. Raw veggies and Leafy greens and sprouts
Raw veggies - onion, tomato, cucumber, coloured bell peppers, cabbage, broccoli, zucchini, baby corn, celery, carrots, French beans , peas, corn etc. starchy veggies such as potatoes, sweet potato, yam etc
Most veggies can be had raw when chopped well ( and chewed well). Some veggies can be steamed if you prefer- typically beans, carrots, corn, broccoli and cauliflower florets, potato, yam or sweet potato cubes.
Leafy greens- spinach, different types of lettuces ( romaine, red oak, lollo rosso, iceberg), kale, parsley, coriander, basil, arugula leaves, rocket leaves, microgreens etc
Tear tender leafy greens with hand. In you like, you can also chop them.
Sprouts - you can soak legumes overnight and then drain the water and keep them covered to sprout. You can use raw sprouts or steam them lightly.
These can be moong sprouts, cow peas, masoor, matki, horsegram or even chana. Legumes like rajma and chick peas can be soaked overnight and cooked in a pressure cooker for 4-5 whistles.
2. Salad base - creamy or clear
Creamy base- nuts or plant seeds. Soaked for 4 hours and blended. If short of time, you can boil them for 3-5 minutes and blend into a paste when cooled.
Alternately, you can whisk some water or another liquid you might use ( see later) into a nut butter and make the creamy base.
For clear base you need to simply mix the other flavour ingredients together.
3. Sour taste - lemon juice, fresh orange juice 2-3 tsp, apple cider vinegar, balsamic vinegar, tamarind paste, soaked kokum paste, low salt soya sauce or even better coconut aminos.
4. Sweet taste - date paste, raisin paste, organic jaggery etc. Alternatively you can use chopped or whole raisins, chopped dried apricots or dried figs or even dried cranberries or other dried berries.
5. Pungent taste - pepper powder, chilli paste, ginger or ginger- garlic paste, chilli flakes, red chilly powder
6. Salty taste - rock salt, table salt, pink Himalayan salt etc.
7. Spice or flavour - this is optional. Thyme, oregano, other dried herbs, mint coriander parsley, chaat masala etc.
Whisk or blend together the ingredients 2-6 and add 7 if you like.
8. Crunch - sprinkle with chopped nuts- walnuts, pistachios, almonds etc or roasted plant seeds. Can also add roasted sesame seeds and flax seeds.
Use whatever available ingredients and mix and match to find the best tasting combination for you.
This way you can create endless delicious salads.
Enjoy them at the start of your meal and then have your cooked meal. When salads are delicious, they give an immense sense of satisfaction to the taste buds. Needless to say they are super healthy too.
They provide us with the much needed fiber and other micro as well as macro nutrients.
I hope this guide helps you kick start your salad experiments.
Enjoy!!
