This is my Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon salad. The two main ingredients -- carrot and avocado -- might not seem compatible or connected, but your first bite will convince you otherwise. The carrots are roasted with cumin and paired with orange, both classic pairings for the vegetable. The citrus goes great with cilantro, and both are a fine match for avocado. Before you know it, you have this fresh, vibrant salad. I love the carrots roasted to the same creamy softness of avocado. The contrast comes not from the texture but from the fact that one's warm from the oven and the other's cool from the fridge.
Wild Irish salmon is a now a rare treat, but for the last couple of years we have managed to get a small number from fishermen on the Blackwater River. We treasure each one and eat some fresh, cure and smoke some ourselves, or give them to Bill Casey, our local smoker, to smoke for us. We hot- and cold-smoke the salmon and teach the students both methods of preserving. For this recipe we use cold-smoked salmon, but flakes of the hot-smoked variety would also be delicious.
Garlic and pine nuts, currants and onion take the ubiquitous tomato-mozzarella salad into new territory.
In this simple and unusual first course or side dish, spears of asparagus and like-shaped scallions are grilled until caramel brown and then dressed in a mustard vinagrette.
Also known as lap and lahb, this minced-meat salad is the national dish of Laos. Some Lao and Thai versions include fish sauce and some favor mint over cilantro, but the core of the dish remains a chopped salad of lightly spiced pork, beef, chicken, or duck brightened with fresh herbs.
Although you can enjoy this salad at any time of year, I find that its refreshing crunch is especially welcome in winter, when the foods we (or at least I) eat tend to be of the rich, stick-to-your-ribs sort, such as stews and braises, or oozy baked pasta dishes.
There are some pears and cheese left from Christmas, a couple of heads of crisp, hardy salad leaves still in fine fettle, and a plastic box of assorted sprouted seeds in the fridge. I put them together almost in desperation, yet what results is a salad that is both refreshing and uplifting, clean tasting and bright.
Mix kale, cocoa nibs, bacon, and shallot in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Coat well with the dressing. Arrange persimmon wheels on the salad after it's put on the plate so they do not break.
Dressing: