THE SALAD TURN-OVER
Here’s an idea that will turn your salads upside-down – put the topping on the bottom, not the top. Plus: Campari Beer.
It’s simple, but revolutionary. Instead of showering your tomato salad with feta, make a whippy feta cream, slather it over your serving plate, and pile the tomatoes on top. (All-staff memo: do this for your next Greek salad).
Instead of (or as well as) dressing your leafy greens with a vinaigrette, make a avocado green-goddessy cream and spoon that on the base of the plate. Cue picking up crisp leaves of cos and swiping through avo cream.
Instead of serving coconut yoghurt on your breakfast fruit, go 1/ yoghurt, 2/ fruit. Every spoonful will be both fruit and yoghurt. Here’s this morning’s. Too easy.
The wins are numerous. You break up your own habits and rituals. You make eating more interactive. You open the door to all manner of new textural and flavour combinations. Your food looks brighter, stronger, clearer, because it isn’t covered up by stuff. Plus, it’s anchored to the plate and doesn’t slip-slide around when you try to pick it up.
None of this needs a recipe, except for that whippy feta cream with tomatoes and quite a cute little honey and lemon dressing, so here it is.
WHIPPED FETA WITH TOMATOES, HONEY AND LEMON
200 g feta, chopped or crumbled
2 tbsp natural yoghurt
a little grated garlic
slug of olive oil
6 truss tomatoes eg cocktail, truss, Sampari
some herbs – oregano leaves, dill, coriander, etc
Honey and lemon dressing:
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp maple syrup
Pinch of roasted dried chilli flakes
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
Sea salt
WHIZ the feta, yoghurt, garlic and olive oil in a mini food processor until smooth and light, which will take longer than you think. Add more yoghurt if you want it lighter/runnier. Refrigerate until needed.
POUR or spoon it into a round pool on a serving platter (texture will depend on how thick the yoghurt was).
GENTLY warm the honey, maple syrup and chilli flakes in a pan, and leave to infuse.
STIR in olive oil, lemon juice and sea salt.
CHOP the tomatoes as you like, toss in sea salt, drain off any juices, and dump the tomatoes on top of the whipped feta.
SCATTER with herbs and spoon the dressing over the top.
SPEAKING OF WINS…
We need to talk about Campari Beer. It’s been doing the rounds over the past few years (very big in Japan), and my spurious research ( looked up the New York Times) revealed it may or may not have been created by a mixologist called Ciaran Wiese in a small bar in Tucson, Arizona, where he finished the night with it served over ice, with lemon. Food columnist Anjali Prasertong likes making it with IPA, according to Kitchn (pic credit Anjali Prasertong, thanks Anjali).
I tried it at the very Florentine working man’s club turned hippy-happy Redfern diner, Club Fontana in Sydney, where they bring a glass with a shot of Campari to the table, then proceed to pour icy cold Peroni on top. Warning: people will stare. People will laugh. And then people will try it for themselves and be converted.
In truth, it’s reminiscent of a good Belgian fruit beer, with its crimson undertones and fruity sweetness, tempered by hops and bitterness. Here’s a really bad pic.
I suggest you try it on a hot day – Christmas morning, while prepping lunch? It’s the Campari you have when you really want a beer (they saw me coming a mile off).
Thanks for reading! And a special thanks to my right-hand man, Terry Durack, for ordering the Campari Beer when he would have preferred either a Campari or a beer.
I would also like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands and waters upon which I work, live, cook and play; the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. I fully support the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice to be enshrined in Australia’s Constitution. It’s about time, folks.
Always something to think about 😊
oh I love the upside-down salad idea; so simple - why haven’t I been doing this for years, I ask myself? I’m very curious to try Campari beer, thanks as always for dropping into my inbox with clever ideas…