By Paul Cormier, Salamanders of Kemptville
Now that our gardens are starting to produce, it’s salad season. Yay! Mind you, salads can be kind of bland and food companies have made a fortune in producing all manner of salad dressings just for that reason. The salad I’m proposing this week is spicy, tangy and delicious. It is, once again, based on seafood, in this case shrimp; however, I have been encouraging you to be creative and change, add, substitute and/or do anything that meets the needs of your or your family’s taste buds. Let’s try for a Cajun Summer Salad.
Cajun Summer Salad
Ingredients
As much Arugula greens as you need to serve your family or guests
Add in as much iceberg lettuce and/or spinach as you might like; Radicchio is also nice
1 pound of large peeled, deveined shrimp
¾ cup cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
¼ cup radishes, finely sliced
¼ cup chives, finely chopped
¾ of your favourite Mayonnaise
2-4 green onions, finely chopped
2 tablespoons (a good squirt) of lemon juice
1 tablespoon (at least) of Cajun spice
A sprinkle of black pepper
Preparation:
- Bring a pot of water to a boil and drop in your shrimp
- Cook very briefly, remove from the heat, place in a colander and cool with cold water
- In your salad bowl, whisk your liquids and Cajun spice together
- Drop in your greens, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes and onions and toss
- Cut your shrimp into chunks and add them to your mixture
- Toss again, then top with the chives, radishes and black pepper
- Alternatively, you can keep the dressing separate and have people toss their own salad
Serving is as usual for salads: either place in separate salad bowls or let folks grab their own. Salads work great all the time, either to accompany a BBQ or on their own as a healthy lunch. For vegetarians, either add tofu for a protein or go without. Don’t forget to add some nice fresh baguette that you can dip in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. As usual, a cold white wine goes very nicely with any salad, particularly this Cajun Summer Salad.
As always, please let me know how this turned out for you at pcormier@ranaprocess.com.
