Creamy yogurt lemon mustard dressing

OK, World-Cup-obsessed means simple dinners - tonight shop bought fishcakes (they sound delicious too - cod and chorizo).

I was thinking I’d just squeeze lemon juice over the salad but suddenly decided to experiment to make a creamy yogurt lemon mustard dressing.

This was enough for two:

Half a big juicy lemon
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2tsp salt (I have this lovely lemon thyme Cornish sea salt but normal salt is fine!)
1 tablespoon vinegar - white wine vinegar would be ideal but I only had white malt vinegar so used that
1 tablespoon light olive oil (virgin olive oil would have too strong a flavour for me)
A good grind of black pepper
1 tsp Dijon mustard
4 tablespoons plain yogurt - just natural or Greek would be lovely
1/2 or a tiny clove of garlic, minced

Then just stir or whisk it all together - taste and adjust as needed!

Does it need a little more lemon? Yogurt? Seasoning?

Up to you!

I'll be making this again .... I think it would also be lovely over some simple grilled fish.

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Thai-style salade nicoise

I had eggs and I had tuna and I had green beans.

So it was looking like a salade nicoise ... but I was STILL hankering after my favourite salad dressing of the moment, which goes with EVERYTHING!

I've had it with roast beef, with sliced steak, with chicken.

Why not with tuna and egg?

Here's how to make my Thai-style version of a (kind of) salade nicoise (give or take the lettuce, olives, potatoes, French dressing ...) for two.

For the dressing, mix together to dissolve the sugar:

1-2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger

1/2 small garlic clove, minced very fine

1-2 teaspoons sugar, to your taste

the juice of 1 juicy lime

1 tablespoon fish sauce

1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

For the salad, whatever you like really!

I had tomatoes, spring onions, courgette (cored and sliced with a julienne peeler), cucumber (peeled and diced), radishes, green pepper.

What makes it really good is also to have some chopped fresh mint and coriander (or parsley if you don't like coriander) leaves.

Oh, and toast some almond flakes in a dry pan ready to add to the finished dish.

For the tuna - I decided I wanted the tuna to be spicy rather than all the salad or the dressing:

1 tin tuna, mixed with a few drops of soy sauce, a squeeze of lime juice and a finely diced red chilli (just use a few slices or half a chilli if you don't want it too hot).

And finally, you'll need:

some fine green beans

2 eggs

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Put a pan of water on to heat, add a pinch of salt and when boiling carefully add the eggs.

After two minutes add the green beans and boil for a further four minutes.

Immediately remove from the heat and rinse and rinse in cold water to prevent the eggs or beans cooking further, then set aside.

Combine all the salad ingredients, add the salad dressing and mix - I just use my (clean!) hands to scrunch it all together.

Put the green beans on top, then the tuna mixture and peel, halve and add the eggs.

Top with the toasted almonds and a little freshly ground black pepper.

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New fave salad dressing // rare roast beef Thai-style salad

Yep, I made my salad with rare roast beef because I was in the supermarket and this lovely piece of beef was in the marked-down pile.

I hate food waste.

I also hate not choosing meat that's free-range and/or organic, animals who had a happy life. Sometimes I have this internal tussle about whether it's 'better' to choose that poor little battery hen who's ended up in the reduced pile, it's life worth nothing in life or death .. or whether to stick by the principle that if we don't buy that stuff, well, that's the important thing, to ensure there's ever more limited demand.

It's a hard one. 

Anyway, that was a bit of an aside as on this occasion, I did buy the reduced little beef joint, and cooked it rare, as I like it.

So this is a long-winded way really of saying that this post is actually ALL about the amazing dressing ... and serve the salad with whatever you choose! 

Make a salad out of JUST those things you really love - I used to make salads stuffed with things I didn't - goodness knows why, perhaps it was habit or thinking that was what you 'had' to have.

I’ve got peppers, radish, spring onion, celery, carrot, tomatoes .... plus some sliced red chilli.

Not too much chilli either - just enough to feel it tingle - as the dressing shines and doesn’t want overpowering.

And then add some toasted flaked almonds and fresh coriander and mint leaves, chopped.

This really adds to the beautiful fresh flavours - DO add these! 

And then such a good dressing!  Here we go!

This was enough to dress a salad for two:

 the juice of one juicy lime

1 tablespoon fish sauce

2 teaspoons sugar

1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

a piece of ginger (grated)

1/2 (or one small) garlic clove minced very fine

All just stirred together to dissolve the sugar, poured over the salad and mixed with my (clean!) hands.

Then topped with the sliced rare beef, or whatever you're choosing to have with it.

This is kind of a back-to-front salad, starting with the dressing rather than the meat or salad itself!

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