Lascaris Chantal - All Sorts of Salads

Published in 2015 by Struik Lifestyle

(an imprint of Penguin Random House South Africa Pty Ltd)

Company Reg. No. 1953/000441/07

No. 4 The Estuaries, Oxbow Crescent, Century Avenue, Century City, 7441

PO Box 1144, Cape Town 8000, South Africa

www.randomstruik.co.za

Copyright in published edition: Penguin Random House South Africa Pty Ltd 2015

Copyright in text: Chantal Lascaris 2015

Copyright in photographs: Penguin Random House South Africa Pty Ltd

ISBN 978-1-43230-479-9

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, digital, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and the copyright owner(s).

Publisher: Linda de Villiers

Managing editor and proofreader: Cecilia Barfield

Design manager and designer: Beverley Dodd

Editor and indexer: Bronwen Leak

Photographer: Matthys van Lill

Photographers assistants: Thando Xiphu and Ross Nortier

Stylist: Lisa Clark

Stylists assistant: Chris Gloss

Reproduction by Hirt & Carter Cape (Pty) Ltd

Printing and binding by Toppan Leefung Packaging and Printing (Dongguan) co., Ltd, China

Salad is the ideal culinary starting point for those of us who are not born cooks. No one has ever been thrown out of the kitchen for burning the lettuce. Salads are a great confidence-builder for someone like me who would never claim to be an expert in the kitchen, but who loves cooking.

My early focus in life was on career and business, not food. After six years in advertising I started my own clothing business, specialising in corporate wear. The business expanded to such an extent that half of it was eventually in the Middle East, which meant that I was spending a lot of my time on airplanes.

After many years of international travel, I found myself gravitating more to my home and, surprisingly, my kitchen.

Two factors triggered my growing fascination with food: the need to do some corporate entertaining without sending out for pizza, and my interest in health and fitness.

After selling my clothing business, I qualified as a Pilates instructor. To achieve the best results for you and your students, you have to cover diet and nutrition as well as exercise. You end up eating a lot of salad.

Simultaneously, you find that home entertaining in South Africa inevitably involves the braai or barbecue, and along with the meat and boerewors you find yourself resorting to lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber over and over again.

Thats the thing about salads. If you dont try something new, they can become very boring.

I began experimenting on my own and testing the results on family and friends. I also began asking around for recipes and new salad ideas. That was more than ten years ago. It was the start of this book, although I didnt know it at the time.

I tapped into the older generation and at quite an early stage borrowed my mothers slaphakskeentjies (onion salad) recipe. After gathering a few more traditional recipes I noticed a glaring mismatch between the ingredients written down by ageing relatives and what was currently available on the supermarket shelves.

A healthy-eating revolution was underway. South Africa was importing and trying out new varieties of vegetables, spices and seasonings. New types of lettuce, rocket, watercress, tomatoes on the vine and other formerly exotic ingredients were now readily available and easily incorporated into stock standard salads. After a while, tossing around new salad ideas became second nature. It was fun, but it was also essential for someone like me. Sticking to some of the old salad recipes was not a healthy option, because Id been diagnosed as hypoglycaemic as a teenager. I had to watch my carbohydrate and sugar intake, and some traditional salads contained pickles and were quite sugary. The older generation did a lot of pickling and added sugar as a matter of course. I began to work on healthy alternatives.

In fact, thats an underlying theme with many of the salad recipes in this book. There are rich and exotic options for sure, but the bias is definitely towards healthy eating.

Another bias is towards simplicity. Exotic and unusual ingredients are fine when youre preparing a salad and youre a five-minute drive from an upmarket shopping mall, but theyre not the ideal option when youre on a game farm in Botswana and the nearest village shop is 30 kilometres away.

I therefore prefer a simpler approach. Once the rudiments are right, you can work from there and add your own creative touch. I also tend to favour local ingredients. After all, theyre cheaper. I was brought up by a single parent and Ive retained the habit of checking price tags and not going overboard.

Over the years, and quite by accident, I found that my salad recipes and experimental efforts had somehow stumbled to the forefront of modern culinary trends. If youre into healthy living and kilojoule counting, if youre a local-produce lover, and if you like things uncomplicated and convenient, you will hopefully find lots to like about these salad suggestions.

I confess its been years in the making, but I do hope you enjoy All Sorts of Salads.

Note: Each recipe serves 4 people unless otherwise stated.

METRIC TO IMPERIAL

Although we may want to, most of us simply dont have the time to make all our food from scratch every time. So Ive found some ways to make life a little simpler and more time efficient. The secret weapon in my kitchen is my freezer. Now I know you wouldnt expect me to say this in a book about salads, but Ive been amazed at what Ive been able to keep in it.

So here are some shortcuts and titbits that have worked for me. In some of the recipes in this book I simply refer to the finished product, like garlic croutons. You will find how to prepare these here.