Tag: world

Mamie’s Pomelo Salad

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When I was still living in Beirut, I regularly had lunch with my grandmother in her neighbourhood Thai restaurant. We never failed to order the pomelo salad for starters, a great favourite. Eventually the restaurant relocated and, for some reason, dropped the salad from their menu. My grandmother was still thinking longingly of it several years on, so I recreated it as far as I could remember, using ingredients easy to find locally. We were all delighted with it!

Skinning the pomelo is the laborious part, but the return is well-worth it. Any that is left over will keep a few days while getting even tastier as it marinates further. Make sure to return to room temperature before eating, to fully enjoy the flavours.

Note: Pomelos are far better known in Lebanon than they are in the UK, but they are available in London in winter, especially in Asian-held shops and stalls.

Itch (Armenian Bulgur Salad)

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This is amazing as a warm salad, but is just as good at room temperature. The amounts of liquid and of bulgur need to be balanced (so there’s enough liquid to soak the bulgur but not so much the salad will swim), so if you change one, be sure to tweak the other. Adjust the heat to taste, and for an extra burst of flavour, try stirring in the finely chopped rind of a preserved lemon!

This recipe is modified from the book Mezze, by Barbara Abdeni Massaad.

Crème de Pissenlit (French dandelion soup)

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A French dandelion-based soup, spiced up with mustard. Coconut milk can be used to keep it dairy-free/vegan (in this case sauté the veg in olive oil rather than butter), but to avoid making it too heavy I would suggest using just 1C coconut milk and replacing the rest with water or more stock.

Nässelsoppa (Swedish Nettle Soup)

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A traditional springtime recipe in Sweden, this soup makes use of the abundant young nettles shooting out at that time of the year. Nettle tops can be frozen for use later, though — and so can the soup itself. (At the time of publishing this post, nettles in the UK are flowering and seeding and it’s too late to harvest nettle tops, but it’s still possible to find some fresh shoots around the older ones).

To make it dairy-free, use 1T olive oil instead of the butter, and omit the crème fraîche. Leave out the egg as well for a vegan version.