Gustafsson - Savage Salads

FIERCE FLAVOURS FILLING POWER-UPS

DAVIDE DEL GATTO AND
KRISTINA GUSTAFSSON

Frances Lincoln Limited

A subsidiary of Quarto Publishing Group UK

7477 White Lion Street

London N1 9PF

Savage Salads

Copyright Frances Lincoln Limited 2016

Text copyright Davide Del Gatto and Kristina Gustafsson 2016

Photographs copyright Kim Lightbody

Styling: Marente van der Valk

Design: Ashleigh Bowring

Commissioning editor: Zena Alkayat

First Frances Lincoln edition 2016

Digital edition: 978-1-78101-211-6
Hardcover edition: 978-0-71123-765-0

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, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the United Kingdom such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 610 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

The Savage Salads team believes that salads should taste amazing, look beautiful and leave you full.

Salads were once thought of something boring served on the side of your main meal, a half-hearted attempt at being healthy. They used to be (and occasionally still are!) a sad mix of iceberg lettuce, cucumber, a few slices of tasteless tomato and, if youre lucky, a sprinkling of tepid tinned sweetcorn.

Thankfully, things have come a long way. Restaurants are now serving incredible and inventive salads, shops are stocking exciting, international ingredients, and theres been a great shift in our attitude toward eating fresh, wholesome and healthy foods.

Were all open to international influences from the Middle East, South America, Scandinavia and beyond, meaning tinned sweetcorn should be the last thing you reach for. Instead, get stuck into salads mixed with chickpeas, olives, black beans; and top your nourishing dishes with pickled herring, serrano ham or a skewer of lamb.

In our experience, though, theres still a lingering notion that salads cant be truly satisfying and cant deliver the protein of a real meal. Its the Savage Salads mission to quash that idea and prove that salads can be enticing, wholesome, filling and packed with protein. To do this, we sell proper salads from our London stall keeping people full from lunch until dinner and weve written this book packed with real salad meals.

And what is the difference between a salad and a savage salads salad? Interesting flavour combinations, being creative with the many and varied grains that are available, and not being afraid to add red meat, chicken, fish, cheese, nuts and seeds to turn a salad into the main event of the meal. This book isnt for crash-dieters and vegetarians: we want to inspire people to eat well because good food is delicious any health benefits are an additional bonus.

Weve also kept the ingredients and methods simple, because everyone should feel confident and comfortable throwing our recipes together from our five-minute salads to dinner-worthy dishes, these are recipes that are easy to prepare and fun to eat and share.

The book is arranged by season, because at the heart of our food is our belief that the best meals come from the freshest ingredients. Salads used to be for summer, stews for winter. Not any more. A winter salad of nourishing grains, enlivened here and there with bright segments of clementine or sharp, sweet pomegranate seeds, is every bit as satisfying on a cold day as pie and mash.

It also means the recipes are suited to peoples needs and cravings throughout the year. In the summer chapter, youll find light and refreshing salads using a lot of raw ingredients; in winter, cooked root veg and comforting combinations demonstrate that salads can be a pleasure all year round.

Seasonal ingredients, exciting flavours, irresistibly good: this is healthy food the Savage Salads way.

Davide and I [Kristina] are Savage Salads. At the crack of dawn each day, we head to our industrial-size kitchen to prepare fresh, seasonal and tasty salads. We make enough to feed the several hundred people that queue at our stall in Soho in London every lunchtime (come rain, shine, frost or even gales!), all of them eager to buy one of our delicious packed lunches. Into every box go four salads each one is full of punchy flavours and satisfying textures and these are topped with one delicious protein (meat, fish or cheese) to help keep people going all afternoon.

We have a lot of gym-junkie fans who cant get enough of Savage Salads our protein-rich and vitamin-packed boxes are perfect fuel pre- or post-gym but its definitely not just health enthusiasts who come to us. People tell us theyre bored of limp supermarket salads and the same old sandwiches, so a lot of office workers love the variation we offer, and then there are the people who are just into good food and exciting flavours, something Davide and I brought to the stall through our heritage.

Davide was born in Naples in Italy where food was central to a good life. In his early childhood, he moved to Tuscany with his family, but his parents continued to be dedicated to traditional Neapolitan cuisine. Davide grew up with food. He loved helping his mother and grandmother as they prepared the family meals; and he learned that seasonal, fresh ingredients (and minimal interference) often make the best dishes.

He moved to London in 2001 hoping to improve his English, and soon started working in restaurants and developing his passion for food and international cuisines. Following most culinary career paths, Davide first took a job as a kitchen porter, but quickly worked his way up to head chef.

I grew up miles away from Davide in the culinarily creative country of Sweden. My parents took great pride in using locally sourced ingredients and vegetables from our own garden in their cooking. Like many other Swedes, we would go out in the forest and pick mushrooms and berries, go fishing for dinner and plant potatoes and other root veg that wed dig up to use in our family meals.

I moved to Dublin in my late teens and began working in restaurants, before hopping over to London to do more of the same. In the last decade Ive worked in kitchens, as well as front of house, and have become even more enthusiastic about good food and healthy eating.