Saturday 27 July 2013

Lunch with MexiGeek: apple and pumpkinseed salad with queso fresco

I don't normally do lunch posts (even though "lunch" is traditionally the main meal of the day in Mexico), but this was a pretty damn good salad.

Salads based on green leaves aren't the most typical of Mexican dishes; mexican cuisine has other ways of getting a good portion of veg into your diet.

But I love a good salad for lunch, especially on a hot day.

The inspiration for this salad came from three things:

1) those blue cheese and walnut salads that were all the rage in middle-brow cafés several years ago (I used LOVE shit like that!)

2) the fact that I have a big block of Gringa Dairy queso fresco in my fridge

3) Gringa Dairy's website, which suggests crumbling their cheese over salads

So I toasted some pumpkin seeds and some sesame seeds, peeled and chopped an apple, and tossed it all with some rocket and a bit of fresh basil.

I "bruised" the basil leaves in my hands, by the way, so they would release more flavour. I probably got that trick off Jamie Oliver.

Then I crumbled some queso fresco over the salad and dressed it with balsamic vinegar and agave nectar (thanks to Luchito for inspiring that!).

They sell agave nectar everywhere now thanks to Chris Martin's wife, but if you really can't get hold of some honey would work fine.

On the side I served some tortilla wedges filled with some of my homemade coriander pesto.

This is totally "fusion food", of course, but still one if the best salads I've ever had. Possibly it could have used some chopped celery, but there you go.

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