Original salads - general principles of cooking
If you want to try something unusual, but do not know what to think of this, try to cook some original salad. In fact, there is nothing difficult in this, just need to pick up such ingredients, which all together give a very unusual bright taste. The essence of the original salads lies in the fact that the components that are incompatible at first glance ideally merge with each other into a single exquisite dish. For example, you can try spicy meat salad with a fragrant strawberry sauce, and the meat in snacks goes well with various fruits (apples, pears, oranges, pineapples, grapes, apricots, avocados or mangoes), prunes, figs and raisins. This variant is also interesting: a tandem of mushrooms and pineapples. The sweetness of the pineapple very unusually “beats” the mushroom flavor. In general, experiment, create and surprise your family with delicious, unusual and original salads!
Original salads - preparation of products and dishes
For the original salad you need the most banal set of dishes: a pan for cooking food, a frying pan, if you need to fry or stew any ingredient, cutting boards, knives, vegetable cutters and vegetable peelers, grater, colander, etc. They serve the dish on serving plates, in small cups (if we are talking about the original salad - a cocktail), in tartlets or in “cups” of fruit (orange, grapefruit or avocado). If the appetizer is served in portions, such a useful invention as salad rings is useful. With their help, you can easily form a small portion.
Preparation of products consists in washing vegetables and raw meat and further heat treatment: meat is boiled or fried, vegetables (if required) are boiled, stewed or baked. The finished products are cut into the desired shape. Recipes for original salads:
Recipe 1: Original Salad
This original salad also has another name - “Royal”. The dish turns out very beautiful and tasty, it is not a shame to offer it to guests who have suddenly appeared suddenly. The peculiarity of this snack is that the most ordinary ingredients, which are used to prepare the well-known crab salad, are diluted with juicy sweet orange. The result is a completely different dish!
Ingredients Required:
- Packaging of crab sticks - 200 g;
- 4 chicken eggs;
- 1 sweet orange;
- Bank of canned corn;
- Clove of garlic;
- Lemon mayonnaise - to taste.
Preparation Method:
Eggs set to stew. At this time we cut the crab sticks into cubes of medium size. We clean the orange, divide it into slices, remove the films and stones, cut the flesh with a sharp knife in small pieces. Hard boiled and cooled eggs clean, cut into cubes. Corn drain liquid. Finely chop the garlic with a knife. Putting all the ingredients in a salad bowl, dressing with mayonnaise and mix thoroughly. Decorate the dish with parsley sprigs. This salad can be served in tartlets - crumbly dough goes well with the delicate taste of the dish.
Recipe 2: Original Salad “Exotica”
The peculiarity of this original salad is not only a beautiful design in the form of a pineapple, but also an interesting combination of juicy fruit with chicken meat. From the most ordinary products a real culinary masterpiece is obtained!
Ingredients Required:
- Chicken breast of medium size - 1 pc .;
- Chicken eggs - 4 pcs .;
- Bank of canned pineapple (bars);
- Hard cheese - 150 g;
- 1 onion;
- Whole walnuts (peeled);
- A few feathers of green onions;
- 2-3 tbsp. l vinegar;
- Mayonnaise.
Preparation Method:
Cook the chicken until done in salted water, cool it and disassemble it into the fibers. Peel the onion, chop finely and pickle 10-15 in vinegar. With canned pineapple pour juice, cut the bars in half. Grate cheese. Hard boiled and cooled eggs cut into small cubes. We sort the whole walnuts into halves. Now we are starting to form an “Exotica” salad. We take a wide flat dish (preferably oval) and lay out the first layer in the form of an oval from half of the chicken meat of the oval. We coat the chicken with mayonnaise. The second layer consists of half pickled onions. Spread half of the chopped eggs on the onion and coat the layer with mayonnaise. Then comes the half pineapple and a thin layer of mayonnaise. Next, make a layer of whole cheese (do not coat with mayonnaise). Then we repeat all the layers of their remaining products: chicken, onions, eggs and pineapples (do not forget to coat them with mayonnaise). Fry the nuts lightly and spread them in the form of pineapple scales. From the feathers of green onions do the top. We remove the salad in the fridge and leave soaked. Housekeeping note: the onion should not be much, otherwise he will kill the taste of other products.
Recipe 3: Original salad with avocado and beetroot
Such an original salad can rightfully be classified as unusual dishes, as it includes products that are not quite compatible at first glance: avocado, horseradish, beets, vinegar and sesame oil. The result is a very bright, tasty and healthy snack.
Ingredients Required:
- Beets - 350 g;
- Cheese - 100 g;
- Avocados - 1 pc .;
- Horseradish - 1 tsp;
- Green salad - 50 g;
- Sesame seeds - 2 tsp;
- Sesame oil - 60 ml;
- Balsamic vinegar - 5 ml;
- Lemon juice - 5 ml.
Preparation Method:
Cheese cut into small pieces. Cook beets until tender, cool and rub on a coarse grater. Clean the avocado, cut it in half and remove the bone. Cut the flesh into cubes. Sprinkle avocado with lemon juice so that the fruit does not darken. Lettuce leaves are carefully washed. Prepare a dressing separately: mix sesame oil with vinegar and horseradish. We spread lettuce leaves on serving plates, mixed cheese and beets on them, and avocado cubes on top. Pour over salad dressing and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Serve immediately after preparation.
Recipe 4: Original Salad “Riddle”
This salad is interesting because everyone who tries it cannot guess the ingredients that make up the dish from the first time. In fact, nothing complicated here: only canned fish, celery and an apple. And complement the appetizer roasted walnuts.
Ingredients Required:
- Bank of tuna in own juice;
- 4 celery stalks;
- 2 green apples;
- Walnuts - 80 g;
- Mayonnaise - to taste;
- Greens;
- A few cherry tomatoes.
Preparation Method:
My celery and cut the hard parts, cut the stems into small pieces. Apples wash and cut into small cubes. We chop walnuts with a knife and fry them in a dry frying pan until a pleasant aroma appears. Open the tin can and crush the contents with a fork right in the can with the juice. Put all the products in a deep bowl, fill with mayonnaise and mix thoroughly. Optionally, you can add a little black pepper. Serve the salad better portionwise. To do this, take the salad rings and form a small cylinder on each serving plate. Each portion is decorated with half a cherry tomato and a sprig of greens.
Recipe 5: Original salad with quail eggs, brandy and tiger shrimps
Incredibly delicious, exquisite, original salad, which conquers with a rich set of delicacies and unusual cognac sauce.
Ingredients Required:
- Small peeled shrimps - 300 g;
- Tiger prawns - 2-3 pcs .;
- Cold smoked salmon - 75 g;
- Quail eggs - 6 pcs .;
- Pine nuts - 25 g;
- 1 avocado;
- Peking cabbage - 120 g;
- Fresh cucumbers - 80 g;
- Cognac - 10 g;
- Tomato ketchup - 70 g;
- Lemon mayonnaise - 70 g.
Preparation Method: Pine nuts fry until ruddy state. Shrimp boil for about two minutes. Avocado mine, cut in half, remove the bone and cut the flesh with a sharp spoon. Cut the avocado in small cubes. Put the rind to the side. Salmon cut into small pieces, cooked quail eggs cut (2 eggs set aside for decoration). My cucumbers and cut into small cubes. Peking my cabbage and cut into thin ribbons. Fold in a bowl of cocktail shrimp, cabbage, eggs, cucumbers, avocado and salmon. Cooking sauce from ketchup, brandy and mayonnaise. Dress the salad with the sauce and mix the ingredients thoroughly. We spread the snack in avocado halves and decorate with pine nuts and tiger shrimps.
Original salads - secrets and useful tips from the best chefs
When they talk about original salads, they mean not only an unusual combination of products, but an interesting way of decoration. Even from the most ordinary Olivier, you can make an original dish, if you do not just serve it in a salad bowl, but decorate beautifully with figurines cut out of vegetables or fruits, flowers from greenery or other fancy patterns. From any salad you can create a real work of culinary art, if you put the dish in the form of a beautiful fruit, flower, animal or any other object.
