by Simone on November 4, 2011 // 10 Comments »

Green herbs and pea salad

As soon as I arrive in the small street in Amsterdam I frantically start looking for a parking spot and luck seems to be on my side as I find one within 200 meters of my final destination. I park, put on my parkline parking thingie, grab my bag from the passenger seat and run rather then walk those last 200 meters to De Sperwer. Unfortunately the door is already closed when I arrive, so I feel even worse when the workshop leader comes down the stairs to open the doors. The typical ‘who are you’ round is nearly finished when I mumble some excuses for being half an hour late and quickly take the one empty seat.

Maybe not the best start of my culinary writing course I am taking under the esteemed Onno Kleyn, a rather famous culinary writer here in the Netherlands. But I had to work and as luck would have it, the cooking contest I was shooting ran late by two hours. I had anticipated a little delay but not two hours… I am thirsty and slightly exhausted when I take my seat at the workshop (afraid to ask for a coffee) and listen to the last few people introducing themselves. It’s a mixed company and I’m already mortified that I might have to introduce myself as well. I hate introducing myself. I always feel I need to say a lot more then “My name is Simone, I am a photographer and I like to write.” The stories I’m hearing from the contestants don’t help. Entire life histories are being recited and one fact sounds even more impressive then the next. For just a brief moment I hope they forget all about me, but one person is so smart as to notice I haven’t said anything so I squeek out the previously mentioned part… Not very impressive no…

That part over we continue with a lot of information about form, content and your target audience which is all hugely interesting so I’m relaxing a bit. Before we came to the course we were asked to write a piece. It’s all shared on dropbox so we could read each others entries before coming to the first lesson. I wrote a – apparently slightly controversial – piece about Vietnam, dogs being eaten there and chickens that are very cruelly treated at the markets. My controversial statement was that I truly think that most caged chickens here would rather die a cruel death if that meant having a life filled with roaming around farms and even roaming around villages for a considerable longer period then the 6-8 weeks they get to life here. Bundled up together with god knows how many other chickens. Never seeing the sky, never knowing the pleasure of picking up little bits of this and little bits of that and every now and then a fat worm… I don’t think that is controversial. I hate animal cruelty. Anywhere, anyplace, so I’m not saying that is ok. I’m just wondering which cruelty is worse….

After all that reflecting I leave you with a deceptively simply salad. Easy to throw together and delicious in all it’s simplicity!

Save

green herbs and pea salad

Yield: 2

Prep Time: 10 mins

Cook Time: 5 mins

Total Time: 15 mins

Ingredients:

75g bacon (small strips)
150g green peas
1 lime (washed)
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon clear honey
a few sprig fresh mint (just the leaves)
1 bunch basil (just the leaves)
a few sprig fresh coriander (just the leaves)
75g rocket

Directions:

Bake the bacon crispy in their own fat (so use a dry frying pan). take out of the pan and leave to drain on paper towels

if using frozen green peas, quickly blanch them in boiling water and rinse with cold water and leave to drain

Grate the zest of the lime and squeeze out the juice.Add the zest and the juice to the olive oil and add the honey to make it a dressing

Add salt and pepper to taste. Tear the mint and basil leaves in pieces. Mix with the peas, bacon, coriander and rocket. Sprinkle with the dressing

Note

This is a very green but lovely salad. It's good on it's own but will also work as a sidedish!

Recipe from Allerhande

posted in Food and Drink, Healthy, Recipes, Salads

10 Comments »

« Previous Post

#
1

Rosa — November 4, 2011 at 10:09
Very green indeed and so beautiful! What wonderful flavors.

Cheers,

Rosa

[Reply]
- Simone (junglefrog) — November 5th, 2011 at 15:26
  
  Thanks Rosa!
  
  [Reply]
#
2

Astrid — November 4, 2011 at 10:22
WOW now this is a verrrry green salad – looks very delicious tho!
I am with you about animal cruelty and I don’t think that your thoughts are controversial either.

[Reply]
- Simone (junglefrog) — November 5th, 2011 at 15:25
  
  Thanks Astrid. If we could maybe just all be a little nicer to all animals, wouldn’t life be much better?
  
  [Reply]
#
3

Dzoli — November 4, 2011 at 12:25
Love salads like thsi.Simple ,clean and yummy.
Great pics too;)

[Reply]
- Simone (junglefrog) — November 5th, 2011 at 15:24
  
  Thanks dear!
  
  [Reply]
#
4

Laura — November 4, 2011 at 14:29
First of all I love the salad picture, the two main colors are so good together.

Second, you made me chuckle when you described having to introduce yourself. I am like you, I hate attention and my heart starts pounding more and more as my turn approach and I can’t focus on what the other people are saying because I keep concentrating on what I will say. Why is that? I could never be a public speaker.

I keep chickens, 7 of them at the moment, we got them as little chicks and they grew on us, we think they are pets. They are smarter than we thought, love to roam free, they dart out of the coop door as soon as we open it. We got them after reading about chickens kept in confinements, their beaks cut so they wouldn’t peck each other, and so on, I wanted to feel good about the eggs we ate. We lost three chickens, two were attacked by other animals. I know their death was horrible and I wish it never happened, one was not under our watch, someone was staying at our house. One of the chickens was a “rescue” chicken, taken from an abusive owner who didn’t really care for her. She had one good year with us, she was happy, as happy a chicken can be. I would agree with you about their death versus their life, however, chickens like any other animals get stressed, so it is a controversial subject. One thing I know for sure, chickens are not cage animals, and when caged they became stressed and mean to each other. I cannot buy cheap eggs anymore since raising chickens ourselves.

I hope you learned something from the workshop.

Sorry this got long!

[Reply]
- Simone (junglefrog) — November 5th, 2011 at 15:24
  
  It’s never too long as far as I’m concerned Laura. Love that you have your own chickens. I wish we could do the same but that is simply not allowed in this area as the houses are too close together. I do always try to buy eggs from ‘happy chickens’ as well as meat but it can be hard. In our area there is not a whole lot of choice and that means I have to travel to either Amsterdam or further away to get meat from chickens that have led a good life. I would always prefer that even if it meant having to pay twice the amount and not being able to eat chicken as often. I’d rather eat good meat!
  
  [Reply]
#
5

Sonia The Healthy Foodie — November 4, 2011 at 20:39
Oh, Simone, I am so like you. I HATE introducing myself, with a passion. That part of your story really made me laugh. I would’ve done the exact same thing.

You write beautifully, by the way. I truly enjoy reading your stories. And you say you are taking a writing course? I say you don’t need this! You’ve got it pretty much down path already!

And your photos? Gorgeous, again! I love that you use purple so much. See, it’s my favorite color, yet, I have still to use it in a photo shoot. It just doesn’t seem to add up in my mind, but you make it work absolutely perfectly. And that salad looks really awesome, sans the bacon for me, of course!

[Reply]
- Simone (junglefrog) — November 5th, 2011 at 15:21
  
  O thanks so much Sonia! Glad that you like my writing but I have the feeling there is still loads to be improved upon.. I think purple and green work really well together but yes it can be tricky to combine it with food..
  
  [Reply]