Six of the best salads of summer

It's petered out somewhat over the last fortnight, but at least we can't moan that there's been no summer at all this year. July was a corker, and although August has been cooler and damper so far it's hardly been a monsoon style washout like some of those in recent years, and for that we should be thankful.

The return of prolonged warmth for the first time in a while has given me a new found interest in all things salad-y. If it's cold (or possibly warm, but definitely not hot) and you can mix it up and bung it on a plate with the minimum of fuss, that's the dish for me.

Easy, colourful, refreshing, no hot ovens necessary, only grilled meat needed by way of accompaniment, these are my six favourite salads of the summer.

Pickled carrots and beets, mozzarella. A Nigel Slater idea this, and a very good one. Give strips of root veg a light pickling in lemon juice and wine vinegar, then serve with mozzarella and dress with olive oil and the pickling juices. Quite subtle this, mild and tangy with a great contrast in textures.

Peas, cucumber, feta, mint, spring onion. Lovely mix of gently sweet and sharp in this one. Any fresh, lactic cheese would do the job. Fresh peas are essential, don't use frozen.

Bread Salad. Read about it here. Still my favourite discovery of the summer.

Watermelon, feta and mint. Make sure you chill the melon before making it and you'll end up with the sweetest, juiciest salad imaginable. Save this for a genuinely hot day.

Peaches and Parma ham. Discounting the black pepper and olive oil this only has two ingredients so I'm not sure it really counts as a salad. Is it just a meal? An assemblage? Who cares when it tastes this good. The contrasts here are the thing, so make sure your fruit is chilled and your meat isn't. Cold, sweet peach flesh and warm, salty pig flesh is a match made in heaven.

Grilled onions and pomegranate. More of a relish than a full blown salad, but an excellent accompaniment to any sort of barbecued lamb. Toss a thinly sliced red onion in a teaspoon of sugar and the same of sunflower oil, then sweat down under a hot grill until you get some lovely caramelised bits. Throw in the pips and any juices from half a pomegranate. Sweet, sharp and slightly bitter, it cuts through fatty meat beautifully.

Café Moor, Leeds Kirkgate Market

Last time I wrote about the market I was a bit negative about the current state of affairs regarding the redevelopment saga, so it's time to redress the balance and talk about the good things that are happening.

Credit where it's due, the management team (or whoever is responsible for getting stalls let to new businesses) are doing a good job on the food and drink front. The range of places to eat in the market has improved immeasurably over the last year or two, and progress on this front shows no sign of abating.

To add to May's Recipes, Maxi's Rotisserie, the rotating occupiers at the Source, the Turkish stall and the Caribbean one we now have Café Moor, perhaps the most high profile of the recent openings. As an aside, can anyone recommend any of the traditional market caffs, some of them must be good and they deserve attention too?

Café Moor have taken the big stall right inside one of the main Vicar Lane entrances, in the pretty part of the market, and have made an effort to make the place look the part, draping the stall with carpets and putting on an attractive display of hummous, salads and such-like.

Shawarma and falafel are the name of the game, wraps of either are just three quid including salads and sauces. The falafel wrap I had was faultless, as good as any I had in the Middle East the other year. Frying the little balls of goodness to order is the key, the result being fresh, light and nutty as opposed to the leaden, mealy golf balls you end up with when they've sat around all day.

Chilli sauce and hummous were also exemplary, clearly home-made rather than bought in, and the salad extends to at least seven or eight different items including some quality pickles. Good, stretchy wrap bread too.

The guys running the place are friendly, the food is lovely and the price is right. Give it a try.


9/10

1904 Hall
Kirkgate Market
Leeds
LS2 7HY

Café Mozaic, Ashton-under-Lyne

Alongside Lily's vegetarian Indian restaurant which I've yet to visit, Café Mozaic has been one of two places in Ashton-under-Lyne on my 'to do' list for absolutely ages. I'm so glad I finally got round to visiting, because this place is a real gem.

The café, run by a husband and wife team who hail from Morocco and Stockport respectively, serves Moroccan and Lebanese food. Kebabs, tagines and salads are all pre-cooked on the premises then displayed in a large glass fronted chiller cabinet for you to choose from.

It all looked pretty good so I couldn't resist the offer of 'a bit of everything' for the daily special price of just £4.80.

What arrived was an enormous plate weighed down with exceptionally good food. Lamb and chicken keftas were moist and delicately spiced, two different tagines were subtly different, one tomatoey and the other darker and fragrant with cinnamon.

The salads were no afterthought, proper zesty tabbouleh (proper in that it was a parsley salad flecked with bulgur wheat, not the other way round) and pickled chillies were an excellent counterpoint to all the meat. Cumin spiked carrots and a creamy potato salad were also spot on.

Even the carbs were a cut above, two types of rice were hidden beneath the meat dishes, one of which was a lovely plump, nutty short grain variety I don't think I've had before.

None of the food suffered from its microwave reheating, so I really couldn't fault anything about it. It would compare favourably with what's served in some restaurants for well over twice the price. Excellent.

9/10

19 Warrington Street
Ashton-under-Lyne
OL6 6AZ

http://www.cafemozaic.co.uk/

Rowsha, Walkley, Sheffield

I haven't eaten out much over the last few weeks, at least not in the evenings in a restaurant with a bottle of wine sense. A few takeaways and a few quick lunches has been about it, but that's not to say I haven't eaten any good food.

A randomly chosen takeaway last weekend was a really pleasant surprise. Rowsha is a little Lebanese restaurant in Walkley with a very reasonably priced takeaway menu. All sorts of mezzes, hot and cold, can be had for less than four quid and kebab wraps are just three pounds each.

The fattoush was a match for those I ate in the Middle East last year, bright and fresh, the veggies tart with sumac and the bread properly crisped. An absolute bargain at three quid for a large container full.

Falafel and shish taouk (grilled chicken) wraps were both well-made, with more fresh salad and thin, lemony hummous. The chicken was particularly good, beautifully moist with lovely smokey barbecued edges. The only down-side was slightly thick, dry bread.

An unexpected delight, simple food cooked really well. I'd love to return to dine in the restaurant at some point.


8/10

288 South Road
Walkley
Sheffield
S6 3TE

Kebab week: Köfte

It's all very well talking about chicken and chickpeas, but I haven't done kebabs justice until there's some lamb involved. There are endless variations on the grilled, ground lamb theme. Every country and region from the Balkans to Central Asia has it's speciality.

I ended up making a bit of a hybrid, Turkish-style kebabs with Greek and Middle eastern accompaniments. The kebabs are closest to Köfte with a bit of Adana kebap thrown in for good measure.

The spicing is quite gentle with these; cumin, garlic and just a hint of chilli supporting the flavour of the meat rather than taking over. The parsley adds a bit of freshness and lightens things up a bit.

I served them plated up Turkish style on a bed of bread with salad, but also with tabbouleh, hummous and tzatziki. Some grilled onions and charred peppers would have been good too.

Makes 4 skewers, enough for a large meal for two

For the kebabs

1lb (450g) ground lamb
1 scant tsp salt
2 tsps ground cumin
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp chopped parsley
1 large clove garlic, finely chopped

For the tabbouleh

4 large handfuls flat leaf parsley
1 small clove garlic
zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp cooked cous cous
salt and pepper
extra virgin olive oil

For the tzatziki

150ml thick yoghurt
quarter of a cucumber
1 clove garlic
juice of half a lemon
salt and pepper

Salad, bread and hummous thinned with lemon juice to serve

1. Mix all of the kebab ingredients together in a large bowl, then form the mix around kebab skewers. Put them in the fridge to firm up for half an hour.

2. Make the tabbouleh by chopping the parsley and garlic finely then mixing it up with the lemon juice, zest and cous cous. Add salt, pepper and olive oil to taste.

3. Make the tzatziki by finely chopping the cucumber and garlic, then mixing it up with the yoghurt and lemon juice. If it's still a bit thick add a splash of water. Season with salt and pepper.

5. Grill the kebabs under a hot grill until a bit charred on the edges and just done on the inside. About four or five minutes on either side should do it.

6. Warm two pitta breads under the grill on top of the kebabs so they absorb some of the juice.

7. Prepare two plates with salad and tabbouleh, then sliced pitta bread, then the kebabs, then the tzatziki and hummous.

8. Eat immediately.

Kebab week: Falafel

It's debatable whether falafels can really be classified as a kebab at all. They're not made from meat and they're not grilled. Not a kebab you may say. On the other hand they're often eaten stuffed in a pitta bread with salad and sauces. Is that not a kebab?

Anyhow Wikipedia says they count, and so do I.

Why I've never made falafel before I really don't know. They're ridiculously easy and much nicer than shop bought versions. These were light, moist and really fresh tasting as opposed to the dry, heavy dull specimens you often find. I think the handful of peas really helped.

I don't have a deep fat fryer but a few minutes either side in a centimetre of oil in the frying pan worked fine. I ate them stuffed in pitta with yoghurt sauce, mango and chilli sauce, salad and pickles.

For the falafels, makes 12-14

1 tin chickpeas
2 cloves garlic
1 chilli
2 big handfuls parsley
lots of salt and pepper
handful of freshly shelled peas
1 dsp plain flour

To serve

Pitta bread
lettuce, tomato, cucumber and onion
pickled gherkins and chillies
shop bought mango and chilli sauce
yoghurt sauce (greek yoghurt thinned with lemon juice)

1. Blitz all of the falafel ingredients in a food processor, then roll into little balls about 1 inch across.

2. Shallow fry them in a centimetre of hot oil for about 10 minutes, leave to form a good crust before turning otherwise they'll fall to bits. Deep frying them would probably be better if you've got the equipment.

3. Serve immediately in warm pitta bread with salad and sauce.

Northern Food on tour: a week in Jordan

The first week of my holiday was spent in Jordan. It was actually supposed to be slightly less than a week, but trying to cross the border into Israel on a major Jewish holiday (Yom Kippur) proved to be a silly idea. It was very closed. So, a week in Jordan it was then.

Let's get the geo-political briefing out of the way with first. Jordan is small, dominated by desert, and sandwiched between higher profile neighbours (Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia). In such a tumultuous part of the world it's remained remarkably stable in recent years, apparently in no small part due to reverence for the Royal Family. There are pictures of the King all over the place, you can't miss him.

As you'd expect from the country's location, Jordanian food is Middle-Eastern in style. All the usual suspects are there: houmous, falafel, shawarma, flatbread in abundance, baba ghanoush, labneh, cucumbers galore, salads, fruit, exceedingly sweet things, houmous, bread and more bread. There are some specialities particular to Jordan, including Mensaf, a dish of lamb with spiced rice cooked with lamb fat and often served with the lamb's head. Disappointingly we didn't get round to trying that though.

I didn't get the impression that there was much of a street food culture in Jordan, casual dining places were scattered about but not with the abundance that you'd find in say Turkey or Egypt. We did eat well though, so here are a few thoughts on food in Jordan, followed up by several reviews of specific places.

Starting with breakfast, you'll probably get something similar to this in every guest house in the land:

There will always be bread, butter, jam, cheese (usually of the Dairylea/Laughing Cow persuasion), cucumber and tea. If you're lucky there might also be hard boiled eggs, tomatoes, bananas and coffee. And maybe a leftover felafel.

For lunch and dinner, mezze abounds. Lots and lots of dippy things to scoop up with your bread. There were plenty of Arabic restaurants (Jordanian, Syrian, Egyptian) dotted around the place, and in Amman we also spotted Turkish and Lebanese. Western fast food was also readily available.

I was surprised to see how many of the places were vegetarian, the diet obviously being far less meat (read lamb/mutton/chicken) dominated than I'd expected. There were also plenty of seafood restaurants down in Aqaba on the Red Sea coast.

In addition to the reviews below we had houmous and felafel on a couple of occasions, and a picnic at Petra with houmous and cheese from the supermarket, and fresh bread from the bakery. This bread is worth a mention, as it was better than the stuff we ate at any of the restaurants. A flat bread topped with Za-atar, and a slightly sweet, chewy loaf coated in sesame seeds, which I think was ka'ak.

On the (alcoholic) drinking front, I wouldn't really bother. I've always found drinking in a country without a drinking culture to be a rather dull experience, and Jordan was no exception. It's always either expensive hotel bars, or expensive imitations of foreign bars (Rovers Return in Aqaba anyone), or find a liquor store and drink in your room. Far better to spend your time relaxing as the locals do, with copious cups of tea (black, sweet, with a sprig of mint) and a sheesha pipe to puff on.

That said, booze is readily available in Jordan should you wish to imbibe. The main brand of beer is Amstel, brewed locally under licence. Refreshing when icy cold, but otherwise crap.

Food prices were very cheap in anywhere frequented by locals, but far higher in anywhere with primarily tourist custom. Nowhere was particularly busy and it seems that the tourist trade has really suffered because of the instability in much of the Arab world. That's a shame because it was a genuinely hassle free, relaxed place to travel. Everyone was friendly and aside from a few cab drivers on the make (and what country doesn't have those?) there was little in the way of pestering or attempts to rip you off (I mention this as the contrast with certain other places in the region was notable).

Hashem Restaurant, Amman

Amman isn't really a big tourist city. It's a functional place without a great deal to see, although the Roman ruins and citadel are worth a visit as is Hashem. I'm told Hashem is a bona fide Amman institution.

Tables spill out across an alleyway and waiters hurry around fetching you plates from one of several cooking stations. One is for frying felafel, one for chopping salad, one for doling out houmous and so on. It's open 24/7 and apparently always busy.

Over two visits we ate big felafel, little felafel (big good, little a bit dry), salad, houmous and chips, all doused in vinegary chilli sauce and scooped up in bread.

The houmous was excellent, very lemony how I like it and quite possibly the best of the whole trip.

7/10
Less than 5 dinars for a feast for two people

Hashem Restaurant
Al-Amir Mohammed Street
Downtown
Amman

Books @Cafe, Amman

We didn't try the food here, but it rates a mention as a rather splendid place to enjoy a drink, including those of an alcoholic variety. A huge terrace, good views, good coffee, shisha pipes, beer and comfy seats. Access via an actual bookshop, how very civilised.

8/10 for drinks and loafing

Books @Cafe
Omar Ibn Al Khattab Street
near First Circle
Amman

Iskender Kebap, Amman

A little Turkish takeaway with a few tables outside. The kebabs were ok but a bit boring, but the pide was very good. I think it was a type of pide anyway. I know pide are normally topped like a pizza rather than stuffed, so this was more of a pide calzone, but I've no idea what the Turks (or the Jordanians) would call it.

Whatever it was the bread was crisp and hot, and the filling meaty and spicy.

7/10 for the pide thingy
Around 8 dinars for a meal for two (kebab, pide, pickles, soft drink)

Iskender Kebap
Second Circle
Amman

Al-Arabi Restaurant, Wadi Mousa

Wadi Mousa is the tourist town immediately adjacent to Petra. Up the hill in the town centre is where you'll find the cheaper places including Al-Arabi, down the hill closer to the Petra entrance is where you'll find the upmarket chain hotels. The town appeared to be struggling more than most, as in addition to the nationwide drop in visitors they're also coping with the fact that the entry fee to Petra has been raised to a frankly well-over-the-top almost £50 for a day ticket. After shelling out for that you hardly feel like splashing out on souvenirs.

Despite this you can still eat well here for a good price. We shared a very good mixed grill which brought plenty of nicely charred, succulent meat (lamb and chicken shish, kofta) alongside an excellent tabouleh salad, a portion of moutabal and of course, a huge basket of bread.

Oh, and some chips as well. We'd done a fair bit of hiking in the heat that day, carbs were necessary.

8/10

around 20 dinars for far too much food for two normal people, including soft drinks and service.
Al-Arabi Restaurant
near the roundabout in the town centre
Wadi Mousa


Arabic Moon Restaurant and Al-Mabrouk Beach Restaurant, Aqaba

Owing to the border mishap we ended up in Aqaba for three nights. Plans are afoot to develop the place for mass tourism, the main draw being the year round beach weather (temperatures well into the 30's when we were there). There are a few signs that this is starting to take off (the aforementioned Rovers Return), but in the meantime it's still very much a tourist town, but for the Jordanians. Let's hope they don't get squeezed out, as it's the only bit of seaside they have.

We ate a few meals at the place we stayed for the first two nights. Decent stuff but I'll not bother writing about it here as it was around 10km out of town on the South Beach, and hardly worth a special trip. In town there is a whole strip of restaurants on Raghadan Street, directly behind the huge, shiny new mosque.

Arabic Moon is a regular houmous/felafel spot, cheap and tasty.

Al-Mabrouk Beach restaurant is one of several seafood restaurants in the vicinity, all of which appeared to have exactly the same menu. We ate the only seafood meal of the entire trip there.

For starters, a not remotely seafoody fattoush salad, a plate of labneh, and loads of bread. The salad was fresh and zingy, with great tomatoes and contrasting crunch from the toasted shards of bread, and I just love labneh. It sort of reminds me of philadelphia cheese only miles better. So wonderfully lactic and creamy.

The main event, the fish wasn't so great. I had sayadieh, a dish of fried fish on rice garnished with fried onions, chopped nuts and served with a herby tomato sauce. It was claimed as a local speciality, but the internet seems fairly convinced it's Lebanese. The rice and sauce were fine but the fish (white, indeterminate) was a bit mushy.

RP's grilled red snapper was cooked nicely but wasn't the freshest specimen.

7/10
about 4-5 dinars for lunch for two

Arabic Moon Restaurant
Raghadan Street
Aqaba

6/10
about 25 dinars for a two course meal for two including fish mains

Al-Mabrouk Beach Restaurant
Raghadan Street
Aqaba


......to be continued...

Taste of Arabia, Wakefield

An unexpected treat for lunch on Saturday, and the discovery of another food based social enterprise.

After the thrill of Wilkinson's I thought I'd grab some lunch in town before heading home for an even more thrilling afternoon of DIY. There was a bowl of stew with my name on it at the Country Kitchen Bakery, but when I arrived a lengthy queue was forming and I couldn't be bothered waiting. Casting my eyes around the food hall I noticed Taste of Arabia next door, which enticed me in mainly because it was completely deserted.

One plate of shawarma in pitta with chips and salad for £3.99 later I was rather glad I'd been so easily swayed. It doesn't look all that great, but everything was spot on. Spicy shreds of slightly chewy but very tasty lamb, heavily spiced with salt, chilli and possibly sumac, stuffed into a perfectly toasted pitta and doused in yoghurt and chilli sauce (out of cheap catering pack bottles but what do you expect for 4 quid). Everything in the carefully arranged salad was very fresh and provided cooling contrast to the spicy meat. Even the chips were good. They were the budget freezer pack variety served by crappy chain pubs the nation over, but actually fried properly (they're nearly always underdone in pubs for some reason) they went down a treat.

I have no idea what the particular aims of this social enterprise are, but they do have the tagline 'bringing distant cultures closer'. In the half hour or so I was there they didn't have a single other customer, so it was more 'distant culture being completely ignored by the local culture'. The nice Turkish man doing the cooking said they were there permanently, so please do pay them a visit before someone pulls the plug. What better way to bring distant cultures closer than by selling good kebabs in Wakefield market?

8/10

Taste of Arabia
Wakefield Market Food Hall
Union Street
Wakefield
WF1 3AD

Syrian lentils

Lentils, lovely lentils. It's impossible to cock up a big pot of lentils. The worst that can happen is lentil soup. This thought is comforting me right now because I've just made a complete mess of my kitchen trying to make calamari. Deep-frying in a wok on an electric hob is not as straightforward as it might seem. Just try and maintain the oil at a steady temperature without ending up with greasy mush or a house fire. Go on, try it. Bet you can't.

Lentils pose no such dilemma. I was particularly pleased with a big dish of them I cooked on Monday (veggie night in anticipation of Tuesday evening's meat-fest), so I thought I'd share the recipe.

Little packets of pomegranate seeds were on offer in the supermarket. I was planning on cooking lentils anyway, and the pomegranate reminded me of a recipe for Syrian Lentils that calls for pomegranate molasses. I wondered if adding fresh pomegranate to the finished lentils would make an interesting alternative, and so it proved. Think of tender, earthy lentils with a hint of smoky cumin freshened up with coriander and little bursts of fruity pomegranate.

Serves 2-3 as a main meal with some bread, 5-6 as a side dish, or maybe more as part of a mixed mezze.

What you will need:

250g brown lentils
2 medium onions
4 fat cloves garlic
a small bunch of fresh coriander
2 heaped teaspoons cumin seeds
1 lemon
a large pinch of dried chilli flakes
1 tsp palm sugar (or demerara)
a handful of pomegranate seeds
salt and black pepper to taste
olive oil

What to do:

1. Finely chop the onions.

2. Warm a couple of tablespoons of oil in a pot over a low heat, then add the onions.

3. Cook the onions slowly so they soften without colouring. Give them a good 15-20 mins to allow them to sweeten.

4. In the meantime crush the garlic, and finely chop the stalks from about a third of the coriander bunch. Also prepare the lentils by giving them a good rinse in a couple of changes of water.

5. When the onions are soft and sweet make space in the pot, turn up the heat a notch and throw in the cumin seeds. Let them fry for a minute or so, making sure they don't burn.

6. Add the crushed garlic, chopped coriander stalks and pinch of chilli to the pot, and fry for a couple of minutes. Boil the kettle.

7. Add the lentils then pour over enough boiling water to just cover them. Bring to the boil then turn down to a gentle simmer.

8. Simmer until the lentils are soft and just starting to break up. The time this takes varies wildly from one batch of lentils to the next. These took ages, around 70 minutes in total. Check the pot every now and again and add a little more water if it looks a bit dry.

9. When the lentils are ready have a taste. They will need a generous grind of salt and pepper, then take them off the heat and add the juice of the lemon.

10. Roughly chop the coriander leaves, then add the pomegranate seeds and as much coriander as you like to the lentils. Serve immediately, ideally with some flat bread.

Al-Safa, Rusholme, Manchester

The curry mile is a bit of a misnomer these days. A cursory glance up and down the Wilmslow Road in Rusholme will tell you that a rather significant minority (if not the majority) of the eateries on the strip are now from the Middle East rather than the Indian subcontinent. If the restaurant names are to be believed then I spotted Lebanese, Iranian, Palestinian, Iraqi, Egyptian, Afghan and Syrian places in a five minute wander. This is probably a good thing as rumour has it that most of the curry houses are actually a bit rubbish.

One of these Middle Eastern places is where I was headed, as I fancied a quality kebab. Following the recommendations of Flavours of Manchester I ended up in Al-Safa and ordered a single Kobeda (which I think are Iranian kebabs). As an aside, if you like curry, kebabs, beer, Manchester or any combination of those things than I strongly recommend you read Flavours of Manchester. I haven't been let down yet by any of their recommendations.

When the kebab arrived I was rather glad I hadn't ordered the double (which I nearly had) as the single was huge and far better looking in real life than the photo's on the menu display. The bread was light and crisp. The salad was fresh, varied and good quality, far from the limp afterthought it often is on kebabs. The meat itself was nicely chargrilled but of slightly dubious quality (ok lamb taste but a bit processed), and the accompanying chilli sauce was fiery.

At £3.50 it was a bargain. Great bread, great salad, great sauce. Meat not quite so great but what do you expect at those prices.


7/10

Al-Safa
40 Wilmslow Road
Rusholme
Manchester
M14 5TQ