Meta Salad

A salad made of salad.

It's way too hot to cook, never mind eating hot things. I think July may end up being the month of salads. I've got a couple planned and Taneasha's loving having hers tossed. Hopefully we'll get to see more of that.

Me, I was crazy enough to make chicken broth last week (pics later) and so I've got a bunch of packages of chicken meat in the freezer. We'll ignore the broth for now since soup is entirely out of the question. If you don't happen to have nicely packaged portions of already cooked chicken in your freezer, those rotisserie birds that most grocery stores have handy will work just fine.

Chicken Salad in a Salad

What you need:

• about 2 cups of cooked, chopped chicken
• a bit of onion
• a couple carrots
• 3 or 4 radishes
• 1/4 c parsley
• 2 tbsp dill
• 1 tbsp capers
• 1/2 tsp celery seed
• 1/4 c mayo
• a bit of lemon juice
• large lettuce leaves
• alphalpha sprouts
• tasty tiny tomatos

What you gotta do:

Dice all the veggies into tiny chunks. If you like celery, it would probably work well in this. I don't like celery, so I opted for radishes. Nice crunch, a bit of bite, totally underutilized root. Adds a nice bit of colour too.

Dump all the veggies and herbs and seeds and flowers (capers are flowers) into a bowl with the chicken. Squeeze on some lemon juice. Salt and pepper would work at this point too.

Blob on some mayo. Real mayo.

You should also select a few good sized lettuce leaves and rinse them off. You're going to use them whole, so a salad spinner may not be the right tool for the job. I just rolled mine up in a teatowel to dry them.

Use the lettuce leaves like taco shells. Some alphalpha sprouts in the bottom, then the chicken salad, and a few slices of the tiny awesome tomatos to decorate the top.

Oh yeah, and then sprinkle it with bacon. Everything is better with bacon sprinkles.

I ate mine like tacos, but I suppose you could use a fork if you really wanted to.

And yes, I admit it, I bought the tomatos because they were little and cute, but they really have a great bright sweetness that works well with the tangy mayo and lemon in the dressing.

What have you bought because it was little and cute?

for the dudes who kicked the most balls

Now, you may not be aware of this, but Spain just won the World Cup. Of football.

You know, the game where you kick a ball with your foot. And you're not allowed to use your hands. Because it's FOOTball.

I grew up in a household that put everything on hold during World Cup season. I'd find my step-dad watching tv at odd hours of the night so he could catch the games live. The guys at his office would not be able to talk about plays he hadn't witnessed himself. As a kid with insomnia, I suddenly had a lovely excuse to sit up at 3 am and watch tv.

I'm not a big soccer fan myself, but I know most of the jargon and I can understand the accents of the announcers. The guys at work though, they've had the tv on in the lunchroom all day so they wouldn't miss the games. Watching youtube vids of the latest plays at your desk is apparently entirely acceptable behaviour.

And I promised them that I'd make cookies themed to the winner of the World Cup. Of football.

Saffron Cookies

Saffron is the most expensive seasoning on the planet. It's practically worth its weight in gold.

Fortunately, you don't need much of it. I bought this little box for about 8 bucks at a specialty store, and it will last a while. This recipe only needs 1/8 of a teaspoon.

It's got a distinctly floral aroma and flavour (makes sense, it comes from a flower) but there's this underlying earthiness to it that can be overpowering if you use too much (maybe that's because it's the flower's reproductive organs).

And because I wanted to really make sure I had the mediterranean thing down, I decided I wanted to use olive oil in the cookies instead of butter.

Apparently some dude name Mark Bittman already came up with this combo and is regarded as somewhat of a genius for doing so. His is nearly the only recipe you can find using both saffron and olive oil. So his is where I started.

Here's my version:

What you need:

• 1/8 tsp saffron
• 1 tbsp milk or cream
• 1/2 c olive oil
• 1 c sugar (victory should be sweet)
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 eggs
• 2 c flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• bit of salt

What you gotta do:

Start with the saffron. It's awesome.

Warm the milk or cream in a small bowl. I used the microwave for 20 seconds at 60% power. Add the saffron. At first it just sits there, looking kinda weird and out of place.

Give it a bit of a stir or shake and then let it sit while you do the next few steps.

Combine the oil, lemon juice, and sugar in a big bowl. It kinda smells like salad dressing.

Beat in the eggs. Definitely salad dressing-like. I mean, this is practically mayo! Mix this with a whisk, or your fancy batter beater for a good two minutes. You want it nice and golden. It won't ever really get 'fluffy' because the oil acts differently than softened butter does, but it does need a good beating. Kinda like Italy got.

Check on your saffron.

Holy hell is that yellow.

Artificial colours have nothing on this shit. Plus, the smell and taste of this... a tiny drop on your tongue. Seriously, you have to do it. It's strong, almost overwhelming, when its that concentrated, but it's amazing. Flowers, the earth, it's almost metallic, like the taste of blood in your mouth, but sweet and floral at the same time. It suddenly makes sense how this tiny part of a flower stands up to savoury dishes and adds delicacy to sweet ones. 

Pour your yellow gold into the oil and sugar mixture.

Sift on the flour, baking powder, and the salt.

You want to just barely mix these.

The dough is very soft, much more like a batter than your typical drop cookie. So I chilled mine for about 10 minutes. The consistency is perfect after a bit of time in the fridge. It's also freaking yellow.

I used a 1 tsp measuring spoon to scoop the dough onto a parchment lined cookie sheet. Smaller cookies means you can fit more on the sheet and they'll cook faster. It's way too freaking hot to have the oven on.

TIP: Put a big pot of cold water on the element when your oven vent is. Change the water with every batch of cookies. Cover the pot to prevent evaporation and you've got yourself a great little heat sink.

I recommend sprinkling a little sugar over the top of these. An extra bit of sweet. If you're feeling particularly generous, use the back of your wooden spoon to grind a pinch of saffron into a couple teaspoons of sugar.

The tiny threads make for a nice bit of decoration on what looks like a plain and bland cookie.

But oh my, they are neither plain nor bland.

It's a subtle, delicate flavour, but so distinctive, and almost surprising the first time you try them.

 What's your favourite sweet / savour cross over ingredient?