GRILLED VEGETABLE SALAD | 9 JUN 2009
The last couple of days in London have provided me with more summer than I had previously experienced over two full summers. There is a lot of skin to be seen, on both women and men, for better or for worse. For some reason 75˚F (I still operate in Fahrenheit but it’s 26˚C for those of you who don’t want to whip out the calculator) in London feels like 90˚ anywhere else. Workers have wet wash clothes draped over their forehead, Good Samaritans are handing out bottled water in the Tube and pretty much every woman on the street has pulled out a summer dress (albeit usually ill-fitting as she hasn’t had the opportunity to wear it in over 2 years). Although it appears my summer might end tomorrow (it says it’ll still be sunny but cooler), I wanted to impart one of my favourite and easiest (and healthiest) summer dishes. The luxury of hot weather when cooking is that your guests (or just you) don’t mind side dishes and the like to be room temperature. This salad simply made up of zucchini (courgettes), summer squash (oddly, yellow courgettes), scallions (spring onions) and sugar snap peas (same name on both sides of the pond I believe) requires little prep and it a great hit for barbeques as well as for dinner.
Ingredients
2 zucchini
2 summer squash
2 bunches scallions
1 box (or generous handful) sugar snap peas
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper
Seasoning
Step 1: Pre-heat the oven to 180˚C. Slice the zucchini and summer squash into strips, remove the growing bits (squiggles at the end of the bulb) and excess green of the scallions and lay them all in a roasting dish. Bathe in olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and any other one that suits you, I used Old Bay. Pop into the oven for 10 minutes.
Step 2: Remove any stems from the sugar snap peas, slice in half on the bias (diagonally) for looks and throw into a bowl. When the other vegetables are ready, cut them into bite sized pieces and add to the sugar snap peas. Toss the salad and serve whenever; hot or cold. Freshen with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.
Note: You can blanch the sugar snap peas if you feel like it (plunge into boiling water for about 2 minutes) but I didn’t and I love the crunch of them raw. You can also use eggplant (aubergine) it’ll cook the same way. I love orange by the way. My sister gave me that bowl.