Sweet and Sour Cucumber Salad

Who does not want a cooling cucumber salad in a heatwave? This one is slightly pickled in a sweet vinegar mixture before serving. It is perfect in hot weather and is even more perfect accompanying a chilli-hot dish! It is also great with deep fried items.

I like it along side a salad that is heavy with a mayonnaise dressing – it is the perfect foil for this. And with something sweet – slices of mango or rockmelon, for example. Try the cucumber in sandwiches, layered with feta, roast eggplant, roasted tomatoes, and lettuce.

Also, consider that we often think of dishes as being an individual dish, but we should also think about how we can use them in other dishes to layer flavours. These cucumbers are PURRfect for including in other salads for the sour element. Master salad makers like Bittman and Ottolenghi will always pay attention to the mix of flavours in a dish and sour is one of them. Include these in a salad dish and cut back on the vinegar or other souring agent that is included.

Similar recipes include Mung Dal and Cucumber Salad,  Cucumber Salad with Capers and Ricotta, and Spicy Cucumber Salad with Herbs and Poppy Seeds.

Browse all of our Cucumber Salads, and all of our Cucumber dishes. Or explore our Late Summer dishes.

Burghul, Walnut and Yoghurt Salad with Pomegranate

There is a Lebanese dish, sometimes called Mafrouket Laban (not to be confused with the dessert of the same name), made from burghul (aka Bulgur) and yoghurt with plenty of herbs. It is a delight in Summer. Because the burghul is soaked, it is the sort of dish you begin in the morning, and leave for 4 or 5 hours, then mix in the remaining ingredients and serve for lunch or dinner.

The burghul soaks in the yoghurt for a few hours to form the base of the salad. It is often served with tender young vine leaves, so it is a perfect dish for Spring and Early Summer. With all that yoghurt, it is a cooling dish, perfect for the first heat waves that we encounter in Spring as it warms up towards Summer.

Use the coarse burghul for this dish if you can (otherwise, medium will be fine).

Similar recipes include Burghul Salad with Olives, Pomegranate and Hazelnuts, Cracked Wheat Kitchari, and Cauliflower, Mung and Broken Wheat Kitchari.

Browse all of our Burghul dishes and all of our Salad recipes.  Our Lebanese dishes are here. Or browse all of our Early Summer recipes.

The Best Miso-Peanut-Coconut-Chilli-Turmeric Sauce

This is a totally magic sauce – it makes every dish you use it in very special. I use it in a hundred different ways – so many, you might want to make a double recipe. It will keep for 2 – 3 weeks in the fridge and it reheats easily.

The sauce is a combination of sweet, chilli and sour, with the tempering of the coconut milk and peanut butter. The sour flavours are layered in a tantalising way – you have palm vinegar or rice vinegar, lime juice, umaboshi and tamarind, and yet it is not too much. The sweet is layered with sweet soy and palm sugar. The heat comes from fresh green chillies and red chilli jam or paste. I usually have this one and this complex-flavoured one on hand – you can use what is in your cupboards, or you might like to make one of these so that you have some on hand. As always, because chilli pastes vary in heat level (and so does your tolerance), adjust the amounts in the recipe to your preference.

The sauce is a brown one though, or beige rather, from the soy, sugar and tamarind. But don’t mind that, it is delicious. Normally I would throw a heap of coriander leaves on top of the dish, but thanks to the record-breaking heatwaves we have had, the coriander fields are burnt to a crisp. However, do scatter some chopped peanuts over the top of your dishes using this sauce.

How is this sauce used? I drizzle the sauce on soups. Dunk noodles in it. It makes a wonderful sauce for deep fried tofu, or baked sweet potato, or steamed snake beans (or all 3 together). It goes beautifully drizzled over steamed, grilled or baked vegetables. Mix it through salads, especially Gado-Gado.  Pour around steamed dumplings.

Similar dishes include Fried Tofu in Sweet Peanut Sauce, and How to Make Nut Butters.

Browse all of our Peanut recipes and Peanut Sauces. Or explore our Late Summer dishes.

Sprouts and Pomegranate Kosumalli

Kosumalli is such an easy salad to make, and it is also the type of salad where you can use up what ever is on your kitchen bench – not only sprouts, pomegranates and onions as in this recipe, but also ginger shreds, green tomato, red tomato, capsicums of any colour, some shredded beetroot (but watch the colour will taint every other ingredient), daikon radish, spring onions and spring onion greens, chives, green mango, and so on. You can also micro-plane the zest of the lime or lemon and add that to the salad. This is a great way to bump up flavours and minimise waste.

Kosumali salads are dressed with lemon or lime juice, and the oil component of a dressing is provided by the ghee in the tadka. They are utterly delicious, tangy, sweet, sour, hot, refreshing.

If you want to make your own Kosumalli, use the basic recipe below for a Sprouts Kosumalli, then add what you have available. Kosumalli dishes demand strong flavours – the bite of onion, the sour of lemon and pomegranate, the sweetness of coconut, the crunch of sprouts. This is the only brief for you as you create your own salad.

Similar recipes include Mango and Pineapple Salad, Cucumber Kosumalli, and Daikon Kosumalli.

Browse all of our Kosumalli dishes and Mung Sprout dishes. All of our Indian recipes are here, and our Indian Essentials are here. Or explore our Mid Summer recipes.

Sundakkai Vathal Sadham | Dried Pea Eggplant Rice | Dried Turkey Berry Rice

Sundakkai have amazing health giving properties, and it is helpful to include it in your diet regularly as a preventative measure for almost everything. We know them here as Thai Pea Eggplants. Dried Sundakkai, or Sundakkai Vathal, (soaked in yoghurt and salt then dried in the sun), retain their health giving properties. They are used in dishes such as Sundakkai Vathal Sambar, and are ground and mixed with other spices for a Sundakkai Vathal Podi (spice mix).

In this recipe, the dried berries are ground into a powder and mixed with rice along with other spices. It is delicious addition to our collection of rice dishes.

Similar recipes include Ghee Rice with Pandanus, Green Mango and Coconut Rice, and Carrot Rice.

Other Sundakkai dishes include Sundakkai Vathal Sambar, and Sundakkai Vathal Podi.

Browse all of our Rice dishes, and all of our Sundakkai recipes. Our Indian dishes are here, and our Indian Essentials here. Or explore all of our Early Summer recipes.

Olive, Pistachio and Pomegranate Salad

In the Middle East and places like Afghanistan and Turkey, Pomegranates are all the rage, and the pairing of olives, pomegranate and nuts is rather common as you get closer to the Mediterranean. We have used Pomegranates with Walnuts and Pistachios before, with just Walnuts, with Hazelnuts, and today we use just Pistachios. This one is a herbaceous salad, and absolutely divine.

The dressing has the Middle Eastern spice, Golpar, in the dressing. This is available from Middle Eastern and Afghan groceries. You might need to buy the seeds (they look like lacy butterfly wings) and grind your own. It is a beautiful spice, but if you can’t find it, leave it out.

Similar recipes include Roasted Cauliflower and Hazelnut Salad with Molasses, Burghul Salad with Olives, Hazelnuts and Pomegranates, and Tomato and Pomegranate Salad.

Browse all of our Pistachio dishes, Pomegranate recipes and our recipes using Olives. All of our Salads are here. Or explore our Early Summer collection of recipes.

Green Tomato Fry Chutney

What I love about South Indian chutneys (as well as the taste) is that you can create a chutney out of any left over veggie in the fridge. Today it is green tomatoes – half a dozen that haven’t been used during the week. They are quickly sauteed until soft and then pureed with onion and chilli. Simple – in fact much simpler than many other similar chutneys. But – Delicious.

Eat with rice or with other Indian dishes, or use it as a great sandwich spread – layer sourdough bread with slices of red tomatoes, roasted eggplant, basil and feta. Divine. Try it with tortilla or corn chips too.

Similar dishes include Green Tomato Sambar, Green Tomato Subzi, and Green Tomato Pachadi.

Browse all of our Indian Chutneys and our Green Tomato recipes. All of our Indian recipes are here, and our Indian Essentials are here. Or explore our Late Summer recipes.

Hara Mung Dal Fry with Fenugreek Leaves

Whole Mung beans feature a lot in our kitchen as we love the earthy taste. They are comforting and nourishing and we will cook up a large pot of Mung Soup or Dal in times of stress or tiredness.

This recipe is a North Indian style Green Mung Dal (Hara Mung Dal Tadka with Methi) that is great with chapatti or roti, and rice. Boondhi Raita, Kachumber, or vegetable dish can be added. The dal is cooked and then mixed with a paste of tomatoes, onions, ginger, garlic and spices. It is particularly good.

Similar recipes include Khar (Garlicky Mung Beans), Mung Bean Soup with Amaranth Greens, and Sprouted Mung Sundal.

Browse all of our Mung recipes, and all of our Dals. All of our Indian recipes are here, and our Indian Essentials are here. Or explore our Late Summer recipes.

A Collection of 30 Soups for Mid Autumn | Seasonal Cooking

The weather suddenly turns cold around the middle of Mid Autumn, whether that is April in the Southern Hemisphere or October in the Northern Hemisphere. Rain sets in heating is turned on, jackets and raincoats come out of the closet. Scarves, gloves and hats are at the ready.

In the kitchen, citrus fruit is beginning to ripen, root vegetables take pride of place, and lentils and beans begin to appear on the table again. We bake, because the oven warms the kitchen. And hot soups and broths again appear, to bubble away on the stove top.

Enjoy our 20 Soup Suggestions for this month that heralds the colder weather to come.

MID WINTER Indian Deliciousness for Cold Weather Spice Vol 2 | Seasonal Cooking

We complain about the cold, and long for light and heat again. We pray for rain yet look longingly at the sky for signs of the sun. Umbrellas are standard equipment now, as are gloves, and sometimes beanies.

Enjoy some Indian Heat Inspiration for Mid Winter. You can also browse:

• Indian Deliciousness Vol 1
• Indian Deliciousness Vol 2
• Soup Recipes for Mid Winter
• Wintery Salads, Dips and Preserves
• Warming Vegetables and BBQs
• Goodies, Grains, Lentils and More
• Drinks and Sweets
• Tips and Hints for Cooking in Mid Winter

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