Salads were made for summer days

30 October 2015

ARTICLE

Words: Taryn Paterson

Entertainment

Perfect as a main meal and pretty enough for a party, these colourful, flavoursome salads simply say summer at its best.

PEPPADEW® PICKLED ONIONS FISH SALAD

Serves 6

Here is a recipe for a fish salad a Portuguese friend introduced us to. It is deliciously garlicky and we serve it with chunks of Portuguese bread so that we can clean our plates in style!

Ingredients

800 gm hake fillets, de-scaled with skin on
Seasoned cake flour
Vegetable oil for frying
Mixed salad greens, tomatoes and cucumber to serve

Peppadew® Pickled Onion Vinaigrette:
2 jars Peppadew® Pickled onions
200 ml (4/5 cup) olive oil
2 bay leaves
5 black pepper corns
3 cloves of garlic, slice
200 ml (4/5 cup) Peppadew® Pickled Onion pickling liquid
30 ml (2 tablespoons) Italian parsley, chopped

Method

1. Cut the fish into portions. Coat the fish with the seasoned flour, and fry in vegetable oil until golden and cooked through. Transfer to a kitchen paper towel to absorb the extra oil. Set aside.
2. Make the vinaigrette. Drain the pickled onions and reserve the pickling liquid. Cut the onions into thick slices. Set aside.
3. Heat the olive oil in a saucepan and add the garlic slices. Cook for a minute or two until the garlic starts to colour. Add the bay leaves, peppercorns and the reserved pickling liquid. Be careful of the splattering oil. Simmer for 3 minutes. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
4. Place the fried fish portions in a glass dish layering it with the Pickled Onion slices. Pour the vinaigrette over the fish and allow to cool down completely. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
5. To serve, sprinkle the parsley over the fish salad. Spoon the fish salad onto a bed of salad greens and top with cherry tomatoes and cucumber slices.

GREEN OLIVE SALAD WITH PEPPADEW® PICKLED ONIONS

Serves 8

Keep a container of this Creole-Italian green olive and Peppadew® Pickled Onion salad in your refrigerator. It is a delicious addition to tossed green salad and a great relish to spread on toasted Italian bread.

Ingredients

170 g pitted green olives, cut into slices
60 g Peppadew® Pickled Onions, drained and cut into quarters
4 celery stalks, halved lengthways and thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
6 garlic cloves, crushed
30 ml (2 tablespoons) capers, drained
45 ml (3 tablespoons) red-wine vinegar
125 ml (1/2 cup) olive oil
5 ml (1 teaspoon) ground black pepper
45 ml (3 tablespoons) flat leaved parsley, finely chopped

Method

1. Roast the bell peppers until slightly blackened. Place in a plastic bag and allow to cool down. Peel the peppers and cut into tiny dice.
2. Combine the olives, onions, celery, peppers, garlic and capers in a bowl.
3. Whisk the red-wine vinegar and oil together and add the black pepper and parsley.
4. Pour the dressing over the salad. Refrigerate until served or up to 3 weeks.
5. Serve at room temperature.

Green olive salad with Peppadew pickled onions

Green olive salad with Peppadew pickled onions

Chicken livers with Peppadew pickled onions, bacon and grapes

CHICKEN LIVERS WITH PEPPADEW® PICKLED ONIONS, BACON AND GRAPES

Serves 4

We can’t tell you how well this combination works, so just try it for yourself. It’s a flavour explosion! Serve it on a bed of salad greens or with lots of watercress.

Ingredients

500 g chicken livers, trimmed, rinsed and dried
8 rashers of streaky bacon
45 ml (3 tablespoons) olive oil
Salt and ground black pepper
20 green grapes, seeded and halved
20 red grapes, seeded and halved
8 Peppadew® Pickled Onions, cut into thick slices
60 ml (4 tablespoons) sherry
Salad greens or watercress to serve

Method

1. Cook the bacon in a frying pan until crisp and golden. Set aside and add 2 tablespoons olive oil to the rendered fat in the frying pan. Add the livers and cook over high heat until browned but still rosy on the inside. Add the bacon, grapes and pickled onions.
2. Divide the salad greens between 4 plates. Spoon the livers, bacon, grapes and pickled onions over the greens. Deglaze the frying pan with the sherry. Add the remaining tablespoon of olive oil and stir well. Spoon the sauce over the livers and serve at once.

Crunchy summer salad

CRUNCHY SUMMER SALAD

Serves: 4
Preparation time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

4 cups cooked penne pasta
1/2 punnet button mushrooms, sliced and fried
1/2 green pepper, sliced and fried
1/2 avocado, sliced
12 peppadew piquante peppers
100 ml basil pesto
100 ml roasted sunflower seeds
Micro herbs to serve

Method

1. Toss the pasta, mushroom and pepper together.
2. Arrange the avocado, piquante peppers on top.
3. Dot the basil pesto into the salad and sprinkle the sunflower seeds along with the micro herbs.

More information
The Peppadew® range of products make both salads and summer days simply perfect! So whether you secretly favour piquanté peppers and splash-on sauces, or prefer to be tickled by a pickled jalapeno or onion or feel lekker and local with an atchar ... don’t hold back. Any, or all of them, will take that salad from every day to gourmet.

The beauty of the delicious Peppadew® range is that they’re always at the ready in the pantry. Conveniently packaged in glass jars they’re also your ultimate go-to range when you want to add instant, lip-smacking flavour to the salad table (or any other table for that matter!).