Calamari Salad with Broad Beans, Lemon and Crushed Tellicherry Pepper

I've mentioned the name of the black pepper I used in the title of this recipe because it's quite simply the best pepper I've ever tasted. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know I have a great love of pepper, so I was delighted when my friend Claire gave me a pouch of Woolworths' excellent crushed Tellicherry peppercorns. With their pungent, warm, nutmeggy, wood-resiny aroma, they're so good that I've been sprinkling them on everything bar the cat.

Wikipedia tells me that Tellicherry pepper is the highest grade of pepper, made from the largest, ripest  of fruits from Malabar plants grown on Mount Tellicherry. This site says that only the largest ten per cent of fruits may bear the name 'Tellicherry'.

In this salad of tender calamari tubes and fresh little broad beans, I've combined the peppercorns with lemon zest and chilli flakes to make a sparky dressing that will definitely give your tastebuds a jolt. If you can't find fresh, small broad beans, use peas, or tinned, drained cannellini beans. I wouldn't bother using older broad beans for this salad, because I'd have to peel them, and that sounds like hard work to me.

Any small green leaves will do in this salad (apart from rocket, perhaps, which may distract from the pepper); it's particularly good with fresh watercress. Here, I've used baby beetroot and young mustard-green leaves, which I grow in pots on my veranda.

The success of this salad depends on the quality of the calamari you use. Fresh calamari tubes are sometimes available from fishmongers and from Woolworths; you can also buy them frozen, but be sure to buy the smallest, most delicate tubes you can find. Don't overcook the calamari, as it turns to rubber in seconds.

I often add a teaspoon or two of Kikkoman soy sauce to salad dressings, as it has an almost magical ability to round out the flavours and prevent dressings from becoming too astringent. If you don't have Kikkoman brand, leave the soy sauce out.

Calamari Salad with Broad Beans, Lemon and Tellicherry Pepper
800 g small calamari tubes, washed
1 tsp (5ml) salt
300 g small, fresh broad beans, or tinned white beans, drained
a large packet of mixed baby salad greens

For the dressing:
1 clove garlic, peeled and finely grated
2 tsp (10 ml) crushed black peppercorns
1½ tsp (7.5 ml) dried red chilli flakes
1 tsp (5 ml) Hot English mustard powder
1 tsp (5 ml) sugar
2 tsp (10 ml) Kikkoman soy sauce
the finely grated zest of a large lemon
the juice of two large lemons
160 ml olive oil, or a mixture of olive oil and sunflower oil
salt, if necessary

To top:
4 slices white bread, crusts removed
sunflower oil for frying

First make the dressing. Combine all the dressing ingredients in a bowl and whisk well to combine. Season with salt, if necessary (the soy sauce is quite salty, so taste the dressing before you add salt).

Rinse the calamari under cold water. Trim the purplish bits off the narrow ends of the tubes and slice them on the diagonal into 1-cm rings (or leave whole, if they are tiny). Fill a large pot with water, add the salt and bring to a rolling ball. Cook the rings in two batches. Throw the first batch into the water  and cook for exactly a minute and a half. Fish them out with a slotted spoon and place in a colander. Repeat with the second batch (don't throw out the water). Now add the broad beans to the boiling water and cook for a minute. If they are large broad beans, you may need to leave them in a little longer. Drain and rinse under cold running water. Add to the colander containing the calamari and leave to drain for a few minutes.

Put the beans and calamari in a big bowl and pour over the dressing. Toss well, and set aside for an hour or two to marinate (don't leave it too long, or the dressing will lose its sparkle).

Now make the fried bread. Heat the oil, to a depth of a few millimetres, in a small pot. Tear the bread slices into little tatters and fry until golden brown and crunchy. Drain on a paper towel and season with salt.

Just before serving, arrange the leaves on a platter. Tip the calamari and beans, and their dressing, over the leaves, and top with the fried bread.

Serve immediately, with plenty of crusty bread for mopping up the juices.

Serves 8 as a starter or side salad.

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Warm New-Potato Salad with Bacon and Mustard Greens

Warm potatoes release the punchy flavours of
mustard greens.

Are you familiar with mustard greens? My vegetable patch is bursting with the ones my daughter planted six weeks ago, and I am so enjoying their peppery, mustardy bite, and the mild nasal tingle they deliver.

They are too strong to use raw on their own once they grow past the tender little seedling stage, but are delicious chopped and scattered over salads, and in stir-fries.

Combined with warm boiled baby potaoes, salty bacon, chives and a light dressing, they are are such a treat.

Scatter a handful of mustard-green seeds in your
garden at the end of winter, and you'll be
rewarded with a bountiful crop. 

The mustard greens should be added to the salad after you've dressed it, and immediately before serving, so they are just ever so slightly wilted. If you want to make the salad in advance and serve it cold or at room temperature, add the greens at the very last minute.

You can make this salad with rocket, sorrel or even baby spinach leaves, but do try to to grow mustard seeds in your own garden, even if you have only a few pots on a balcony. You'll be amazed at how fast they grown, and how interestingly zippy they taste.

Warm New-Potato Salad with Bacon and Mustard Greens

24 new potatoes, boiled with salt until just tender
10 rashers streaky bacon, diced
a small onion, very finely chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
the juice of a lemon
100 ml olive oil
2 Tbsp (30 ml) white wine vinegar
3 Tbsp (45 ml) chopped fresh chives
a small bunch of fresh young mustard greens, rocket, sorrel or spinach
salt and milled black pepper

Drain the hot baby potatoes and keep warm. Heat a frying pan, add a little olive oil and fry the bacon over a brisk heat until crisp and browned. In the meantime, put the chopped onion, crushed garlic, lemon juice and a pinch of salt in a big mixing bowl and stir well (this will help remove the sting from the onions). Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon and set aside.

Pour the vinegar into the hot pan, swirl and scrape to loosen the bacon residue, and immediately remove from the heat. Whisk in the olive oil and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Cut the baby potatoes in half, skins and all, and add them, together with the cooked bacon and chopped chives, to the bowl containing the onions. Pour over the warm dressing and toss together gently. Finely slice the mustard greens into ribbons (if you're using rocket, leave it whole) and add them to the salad. Toss again. Tip into a clean salad bowl and take it straight to the table.

Serve 6-8 as a side salad


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Spring Salad of Edamame Beans, Fennel, Avocado and Pancetta

I was intrigued to pick up a packet of edamame beans at my local Woolworths yesterday and, never having seen such a bean sold in the snowy tundras of South Africa, let alone tasted one, I bought them, chomped on them on the way home in the car, and hurried to my desk to Google them.

To my surprise, Google couldn't product a single decent description of them, until I realised I was ignorantly searching for 'endamame' with an N.

Once I'd amended my keyword to 'edamame', I learned that this beautiful jade-green beanlet is a green soybean, picked young in its pod.

The Woolworths package label told me that the beans are delicious quickly sautéed in butter, but I really liked the taste of them raw, so I made them into this salad, which has fennel for an aniseed crunch, avocado for silkiness, and a crumbling of frizzled pancetta for salty crispiness. If you can't find edamame beans, try this salad with shelled fresh peas. (And if you can't find pancetta, use streaky bacon instead.)

You can dress this salad with anything you like, but a light dressing of lemon juice and olive oil with a little garlic and a whisper of soy sauce was just right for me.

At the last minute I added a handful of young mustard greens (grown, tenderly, from seed, by my daughter in her little vegetable patch). Have you tried growing your own mustard greens? They sprout like weeds, mature quickly and have a lovely mustardy zing. The ones in the picture are the Florida Broadleaf variety.

This salad is delicious, but very filling, and very fart-producing: if you're serving this to friends, give them just a teacup each.

Spring Salad of Edamame Beans, Fennel, Avocado and Pancetta, with Lemon and Garlic Dressing

6 rashers of pancetta (or streaky bacon)
2 young bulbs of fresh fennel, plus a few of the feathery fennel leaves
1½ cups (375 ml) edamame beans (or fresh peas from the pod)
2 spring onions, white parts only, finely sliced
a handful of flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
1 perfectly ripe, firm avocado
mustard greens [optional]

For the dressing:1 clove fresh garlic, peeled and crushed
3 Tbsp (45 ml) fresh lemon juice
1 Tbsp (15 ml) white wine vinegar
1 tsp (5 ml) Kikkoman soy sauce
100 ml olive oil
a pinch of white sugar
salt and freshly ground black pepper

First prepare the pancetta. Heat a non-stick frying pan over a high flame. When the pan is really hot, add a lick of oil and add the pancetta or bacon strips. Allow them to fry, undisturbed, until brown on the underneath. Flip them over, and cook for another minute or so, until they are brown and crisp. Remove from the pan, drain on a piece of kitchen paper, crumble into pieces and set aside.

Now make the dressing: whisk all the dressing ingredients together and set aside while you make the salad.

For the salad: Slice the fennel bulbs away from their stalks and peel off the tough outer leaves. Slice the bulbs in half, lengthways, and chip out the fibrous core, if there is one. Slice finely, as if you are slicing a leek. Finely chop one or two of the feathery fennel fronds. Put the fennel slices and chopped leaves into a bowl and add the edamame beans, chopped spring onions and chopped parsley.

Peel the avocado, remove the pip and peel, slice into neat cubes and add to the bowl along with the mustard greens. Tip over just enough dressing to coat all the ingredients and toss gently to combine. Sprinkle over the crumbled pancetta and add the mustard greens. Check the seasoning (this salad needs more salt than you would imagine).

Serve immediately.

Serves 4, as a starter or side dish.


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