a built salad

Posted on | June 13, 2009 | 1 Comment

my usual method of making a salad is to hurl everything into a bowl in a strict order, toss with dressing and serve immediately.
but from time to time around here we enjoy a structured salad built right onto the serving plate…..like tonight.

i obtained some beautiful fresh yellowfin tuna on friday and this was going to be the centre piece.
maurice picked a fresh crispy cos lettuce and some scallions from the garden.
i arranged roughly sliced cos, tomato wedges, baby capers, slices of grilled garlicky eggplant, and some potato wedges (simply boiled and tossed warm with a very simple balsamic vinaigrette and scallions) on the plates, then topped with grilled tuna (i simply oiled it, salted it, peppered it….when it is good fresh fish it doesn’t need a lot of fiddling about) and a lavish dollop of fresh mayonnaise and more scallions.
ground pepper all over completed the dish and the whole thing took less than forty minutes from the start, including the time i spent gazing at the boiling potatoes and swaying to the haunting sounds of goldfrapp’s gold mountain. or is it cold mountain?