Salads of the world
Salads where the vegetable is the dish rather than a side to meat.
In most of the world's kitchens a salad is not a bowl of leaves under dressing but a way of treating a vegetable: charred pepper, wrung-out cabbage, roasted aubergine, pickled onion. There is less raw produce in this collection than the word suggests.
The dressing is nearly always built on acid — vinegar, lime, pomegranate juice or yoghurt — and that is what decides how long a salad will hold before serving. Where it will not wait, the recipe says so.
12 dishes
- Causa limeñaPeru
Layers of yellow potato purée with lime and ají, filled with chicken or tuna.
75 min · Easy
- Ecuadorian cevicheEcuador
Prawns in a tomato and lime broth, served cold with popcorn and plantain crisps.
50 min · Easy
- FattoushSyria
A salad of vegetables and herbs with fried pieces of flatbread and sumac.
30 min · Easy
- Grilled halloumi with watermelonCyprus
Cypriot cheese seared to a crust, with cold watermelon and mint. The island's summer plate.
30 min · Easy
- Horiatiki saladGreece
The village salad, with no leaves in it: tomato, cucumber, onion, olives and a whole slab of feta on top.
15 min · Easy
- Lahpet thokeMyanmar
A salad of fermented tea leaves with fried beans, nuts and garlic.
35 min · Easy
- LarbLaos
Chopped meat with toasted rice powder, herbs and lime. The national dish of Laos.
45 min · Easy
- Salata aswadSudan
A Sudanese salad of fried aubergine with peanut butter and lemon.
50 min · Easy
- Shopska saladBulgaria
Tomato, cucumber and pepper under a cap of grated white cheese. The vegetables are cut large, the cheese grated fine.
30 min · Easy
- Swabian potato saladGermany
Potato dressed in warm stock with vinegar and oil. No mayonnaise — southern Germany does not admit it here.
40 min · Easy
- TabboulehLebanon
A parsley salad with a little bulgur in it, not the other way round. There is ten times more herb than grain.
25 min · Easy
- Tam mak hoongLaos
Green papaya salad pounded in a mortar. The Lao version, made with fermented fish padaek.
25 min · Easy