salad

crunchy keralan salad

servings
4

method

This is a fantastic and really unusual salad that was inspired by a friend of mine called Das who runs the most terrific Indian restaurants in London, called Rasa. Although I have called it ‘Keralan’, it isn't really a true salad from there as you'd never find cress in Kerala! In Rasa, Das uses a lot of fresh coconut – which really is one of the most incredible flavors for making dishes like curries, or mixed into rice, breads, desserts and salads. You can now buy coconuts from most supermarkets, but if you can't find one, feel free to make this salad without it – it will still be pretty good but it won't have that special edge to it. Only make this when the mangoes are silky smooth and not at all stringy. You should be able to cut through them like butter.

First of all you need to crack open the shell of the coconut. I normally do this by placing it on a tea towel on a hard surface and then giving it a wallop with a rolling-pin or a hammer. Once you've cracked it open you can pull it apart (being careful not to spill the milk everywhere!), discarding the hard outer shell. The dark skin on the outside of the coconut's flesh doesn't bother me, especially if I'm grating it. But if you want to remove it, a speed peeler works quite well.

Once you've got into your coconut, cut the peppers into quarters, remove the stalks and seeds, then finely slice. Trim your cress directly from its punnet (the easiest way to do this is to take the cress out of the punnet, wash the leafy end and stalks under a tap, then slice the stalk end off and discard it). Trim your spring onions and finely slice them. Cut the mango flesh off the stones and finely slice it (there is a knack to doing this properly – if you look at the shape of the mango, the flat stone always lies the same way, parallel with the flattest sides, so you should be able to slice the flesh off with not too much wastage). Get your pieces of coconut and grate them finely. Put all these ingredients into a large salad bowl.

Lime and ginger work together really well in the dressing. Finely grate the ginger and lime zest into a small bowl, then add the lime juice and olive oil. Season to taste, and add more oil as necessary to balance the flavors of your dressing. Limes can be different strengths depending on their juiciness and size.

Dress the salad just before serving, saving any extra dressing for another day, and eat straight away. Great just as it is, or with some grilled prawns or satay chicken. Also lovely as a snack inside a wrap or flatbread. So even though the coconut may be a pain to prepare it's well worth it...

• from Jamie's Dinners

ingredients

• 1 coconut
• 2 red peppers
• 4 punnets of cress
• 1 bunch of spring onions
• 2 ripe mangoes, peeled
for the dressing
• a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, peeled
zest and juice of 3–4 limes
• 7–8 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

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1. by naive on Thu 27 Oct 2011 @ 20:48

Hi Thanks for the recipe. I have to say that I underestimated the time it takes to prepare all this. The coconut especially was pretty fiddly, add to that all the slicing and grating... However, the end result was rewarding and it tasted very nice. A discovery for the palate. I thought that it worked also quite well in combination with your baked new potatoes with sea salt and rosemary. Cheers, Matthis

2. by Panda Square on Wed 15 Jun 2011 @ 20:25

What is a punnet of cress? Is it important for the taste? Can anything be used instead that is similar?

3. by Mikael Hammar on Fri 13 May 2011 @ 10:13

What about functional foods on the menu, for ex. high blood pressure, stress and so on for illness and sickliness. I like to see your show on free time on TV specially from the Mediterranean area it remembers me of the smell and taste of the food from there. Good show! Best regards Mikael from Sweden.

4. by Sweedinka on Fri 03 Sep 2010 @ 23:11

It did not look like on the picture but tasted amazingly. My husband just loves it! Thank you for a very good and unusual idea :)

5. by arvind on Tue 14 Jul 2009 @ 13:04

this was just amazing. especially the ginger with lemon was too good.

6. by Gem on Thu 02 Jul 2009 @ 10:18

I can't believe Jamie is reccomending a Keralan restaurant that doesn't serve Thoran!

7. by Maureen on Wed 13 May 2009 @ 13:40

Sounds like a fantastic taste. I wanted to go to Rasa on last trip but so many restaurants, so little time...

8. by Catherine Greenall on Wed 13 May 2009 @ 12:39

Wow! and it's vegan too! I'll definitely be trying this one!
Catherine

9. by malee on Wed 13 May 2009 @ 07:45

i am in thailand, i love your tvshow very much,
u cook look like very easy,so i would like to cook
some recipe .but some ingredient can't find,and some it's not
my culture.
love you.....

10. by Lillian Claire Skovsgaard on Tue 28 Apr 2009 @ 16:10

Hi Jamie, my/
I have a lovely time in your computer. I are 77years old and my recipes
on the best with you are the super. Thank you!!!!
Regards,
Lillian

11. by pa on Sat 21 Mar 2009 @ 11:01

good

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