16 Jan A comforting, warm salad for cold, Winter days
On warm salads…
At the start of the year, I like to have some time off social media, just getting back into my routines, weaning myself off sugar, sleeping and nourishing myself. Once the kids went back to school, I couldn’t wait to get back into my salads. However, in January, it has to be a comforting warm salad for me. Warm salads always take me back to Paris. I met my friend there one Spring, before kids, and every day we went to this dark, little bistro near Montmatre and ordered a different warm salad. One had potatoes, lardons and egg on top of crispy leaves, another one was stuffed full of caramelised shallots and chicken livers. Then, there was Salad de Chèvre Chaud with goats cheese melting all over slices of baguette. Each one with a perfect vinaigrette, naturellement. I get upset when I am served salad leaves without vinaigrette. This warm salad contains no salad leaves, however, so there is no need. We season everything separately and serve with only harissa on top (Belazu is my favourite).
Salad Lover
You may or may not know that I am a great salad lover. I especially appreciate a salad during the day, when I am working from home with my partner. It feels adult and sophisticated somehow, even if we have just been shovelling chicken manure all morning. I am exploring my love of salads on this blog, along with Polish food, which is very close to my heart (as I’m sure everyone knows), my new-found passion of gardening and gut health. In a salad, all these loves can come together. I always try to add something from my garden or a bit of ferment for the gut, hence the fermented garlic clove here. You can just add one fresh normal garlic clove to the mushrooms, a minute or two earlier . You can also add another ferment you have available. I was kicking myself for not adding some fermented red cabbage to this salad, for example, as it would have worked beautifully.
A recipe for warm salad with garlic mushrooms, spiced croutons and buttered broccoli
A comforting, warm salad for cold, Winter days
Course: SaladsDifficulty: Easy2
servings15
minutesA delicious and healthy-ish warm salad recipe.
Ingredients
2 thick slices of sourdough bread, cut into chunks
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon paprika
30g butter, salted
200g mixed mushrooms
2 fermented garlic cloves, diced
1 head of broccoli, separated into florets.
Half a tin of sweetcorn
2 eggs
- To serve: harissa
Directions
- Blanche the broccoli in salted water for about 5min, then remove and pour over some cold water immediately. Place back in the pan, add half of the butter, cut into small chunks, cover and set aside.
- Pour half the olive oil over the bread and season with half of the paprika. Fry on a frying pan, heat the remainder of the olive oil. Add the bread and fry for about 3-4 minutes on each side.
- Fry the mushrooms in the remaining butter, stirring occasionally. After about 7min, add the sweetcorn and season with salt and bit of paprika. Fry for another 2min or so. At the end, add the fermented garlic clove and heat through for a moment.
- Fry 2 eggs and combine all the ingredients on individual plates. Top each plate with a fried egg and drizzle with harissa.