salad lunch

moroccan salads

A couple of summers ago I spent a month in Morocco traveling and eating. Typically with your meal you chose a salade au maroc or harira. I (nearly) always chose the soup and craved the salad. I was warned to avoid uncooked foods, and although the salad was mostly cooked it wasn't completely. You see their are some issues with water for foreigners (but if you spend a lot of time their you can learn to stomach des microbes). My first meal outside of Morocco (in Madrid) was a giant salad and since then I have been making my own version of salade au maroc at home. 

What I saw was an artists palette of veggies. As a base were greens, topped with cold (canned?) tuna in the center, surrounded by a boiled egg, potato salad, carrot salad, beet salad, and tomato salad. This was fairly consistent at every restaurant (my traveling companion ordered many salads and was the worse for wear). Each salad is cooked with a dressing (with the exception the tomato, which was not cooked) and then served cold. 

My favorite salad is the potato, which surprised me in Morocco as I have never been a fan of potato salad. The recipe I have is for boiled baby potatoes and a dressing made of red onions, garlic, saffron (soaked in water), white wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, cilantro (coriander), mint, and salt n' pepper.

Cheap Eats, part 2

I usually avoid large veggies- cauliflower, cabbage because it's a bit too much for one person - but the red cabbage looked so beautiful. Clotilde from Chocolate and Zucchini recently posted a cabbage stir fry. What could be better (as I am also learning the art of stir-fry and curries)? I varied from her posted recipe and used red cabbage, roasted turkey, fresh red chilies, and a few splashes of hot and soy sauces.  The added roasted sesame seeds were sensational. My pallet could handle a bit more spice. Maybe I need some sriracha? Clotilde suggests using chicken or eggs, but tofu (cooked separately), shrimp, or pork would also be tasty - whatever you have available! There is also a suggestion of adding a slice of fennel, which would be delicious but would add a bit to the cost of this cheap eat.