Fresh ideas in a salad bowl

Necessity is supposed to be the mother of invention. In my kitchen, I know sheer desperation has led to some of my happier innovations. When you’re faced, for instance, with an almost-bare fridge at 8.30 in the morning and have 30 minutes to pack a quasi-healthy office lunch, you discover creative depths you never thought you possessed. Recently, hankering for new salads, in a city where the wet markets recovered from the heat wave only to segue into stifling monsoonal humidity, led me to fresh ideas. I was fed up of recycling the old familiars of the season — eggplant, green papaya, cucumber, watermelon. Determined to introduce new characters into my salad bowl, while staying with local, seasonal veggies and fruit, I launched my mission to uncover the salad-potential that I was convinced lay hidden in produce that I had so far encountered only in traditional preparations.

And as it turns out, I was right. Grated raw papaya and julienned raw mango are regulars in warm-weather salads. But it’s the discovery of the salad-potential of a couple of other fruits at the green or unripe stage that got me excited. On top of the heap was green jackfruit — aechor in Bengali, kathal in Hindi, palakkai in Tamil — that wonderful ecru-fleshed precursor to the yellow kernelled, strong-scented jackfruit. For those unfamiliar with aechor, I hasten to add that at this green stage, the fruit has little resemblance (in taste) to what it would one day become if left unplucked! It is odourless and has a wonderful meaty texture when cooked (steamed or boiled). Combined with slivered onions, ruby red pomegranate and plump black olives, all bathed in a robust dressing of honey-laced, garlic-infused yoghurt, olive oil and chilli flakes, this is a fabulous and filling salad. Pair it with some fresh, warm, whole wheat rolls or any good bread for a lovely, light and satisfying, summer lunch.

Plantains — the unripe fruit of a species of banana — also do well in salads. Throw in some cubed plantains (steamed in their thick hides to prevent discolouring) into a tomato and olives salad and you’ll be surprised at how much they contribute to the dish. Raid your store cupboard for jalapenos, capers or green peppercorn; make sure you don’t stint on the olive oil, and you’re guaranteed a flavourful salad full of interesting textures, tastes and colours. Use mayonnaise (make it at home, if you can) spiked with garlic as a dressing.

Snake beans lend themselves really well to salads too. I confess I never believed one could do much with these ropey beans barring a few spicy dishes. But the need to assemble a quick salad one evening to accompany a grilled fish dinner, with only a wedge of pumpkin and a tangle of snake beans in the fridge to work with, ended up being a blessing in disguise. In this instance, both cubed pumpkin and chopped beans were steamed to the al dente (to-the-teeth) stage and while still warm, dressed with a bold vinaigrette. Some mixed seeds (pumpkin, sunflower and flax) tossed in for crunch and smoked Bandel cheese (feta works just fine too) crumbled over before serving completed a no-hassle, seasonal summer salad. The vibrant orange and green of the vegetables provide a perfect canvas of earth colours, speckled with the brown of the seeds and the ivory white cheese. You can also do a luxe version by replacing the seeds with honey-toasted walnuts, and splurging on some really top-quality goat cheese to dollop over it. Since that eureka moment, I’ve been using snake beans with chickpeas, with kidney beans, with tomatoes and cucumber.

My mum-in-law is quite easily the most inventive cook I know, and on Saturdays, when the family gathers at her table for lunch, there’s always a new surprise awaiting us. Recently, it was a salad where diced tomatoes and wafer-thin shavings of cucumber had been tossed with palm hearts — the fruit of the palmyra palm (taal in Bengali, nongu in Tamil, tari in Hindi). The sweet jelly-like hearts are a summer treat, but I would have never thought of using them in a salad, and that too with such happy results. The pulpy cubes held their own against the cucumber and tomatoes, and the French dressing (vinegar, olive oil, crème fraîche, mustard and seasonings), low-key on purpose, ensured the subtle flavours of the palm heart were not drowned by the other elements of the ensemble.

Sometimes, all it takes to make a simple meal exciting is the pluck to take local seasonal veggies and fruits out of their traditional roles and toss them into salads.

Recipe

Summer salad of palm hearts and prawns (serves 4)

10 prawns shelled, deveined

4-6 palm hearts

1 cup grated green papaya

1/4 cup julienned green mango

Sprigs of mint

Dressing

3tbsp olive oil

1tbsp lemon juice

Honey and salt to taste

1 Carefully peel the thin yellowbrown skin covering palm hearts and slice into chunks.

2 Cook prawns in salted water for a few minutes till opaque. Cool.

3 Make a dressing by whisking together olive oil, lemon juice, honey and salt; make sure it’s not too tart.

4 Gently toss palm hearts, papaya, mango and prawns in the dressing. Chill. Garnish with mint and serve.

( Arundhati Ray is a Kolkata-based writer )

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