Salmon and Bacon Salad with Egg Horseradish Sauce

I only decided to post about this one when I had finished making this salad.  So the presentation is a bit ordinary but the taste was good.

Ingredients:

For the salad:

Smoked salmon – a peppered piece

6-8 rashers of bacon

Radishes

Cherry Tomatoes (heirloom)

Small avocado

Cucumber

Dill

Salt and Pepper

Lemon juice

For the sauce:

1 lightly hard-boiled egg

Gherkin

Horseradish – grated

Salt and Pepper

Bacon fat

Cream

Lemon juice

Method:

Fry off the bacon.  When done cut it up into bite sized pieces.

Cut up the radishes, cherry tomatoes and cucumber and put them onto your salad plate.

Cut your avocado in half and take the stone out with a spoon – I try not to use a knife for this ever since I heard about the very large number of injuries caused!  A spoon works just find – I use a tablespoon measuring spoon.  I then cut the avocado into quarters leaving the skin on.  It exposes less flesh to the air and so you don't need to add as much lemon juice to stop it browning.  And when you eat the salad it is quite easy just to cut the flesh off the skin with your knife and then eat it.

Roughly chop your dill and scatter it on.

I then made the sauce (so that I could use the same knife for cutting the bacon and salmon later).  The sauce was mashed up egg, horseradish sauce, lemon juice, chopped gherkin, salt and pepper and lastly a little splash of cream to loosen it up.

Then onto cutting up the bacon – and then added the bacon fat from the pan into the sauce.

Finally flaking the smoked salmon.  Season the salad to your liking.

Next time I would be confident enough to drizzle the sauce over the salad but I just wasn't sure enough that it would work.  It did.

Beetroot & Goat's Cheese Salad

This is a quick no fuss salad – but you need to think carefully about the balance between the ingredients – I used too much of a really sharp feta and it overpowered everything.

Ingredients:

2 passionfruit

Goat's Cheese – less than 100g

Salt if needed

Dill

Cooked beetroot

Method:

Sieve the passionfruit pulp – on reflection I think it might have been better just to put it onto the salad whole – we eat it like that usually anyway.

Cut up the beetroot and put it on your plate – sprinkle it with the cheese – pour over the passionfruit and sprinkle dill fronds on the top.

That's it but as I said try to get a good balance between the beetroot and the cheese.

Pork Steaks with a Mustard Dill Sauce Reprised

I am on a continual journey of experimentation as to how to cook pork so it is succulent.  This way worked very well.  Much better than most of my efforts.

I started with 2 pork steaks.  I bashed them with a heavy pestle to tenderise them.  (I put cling film over the steaks to keep the pestle clean)

I rubbed the steaks with oil, salt and white pepper.

I seared them in a hot pan – but only 2 minutes on each side.

Then I put them into a pre-heated dish in the oven at 150 degrees C (approx. 300 F) and covered them with foil and left them there for 20 minutes.

For the dill mustard sauce, I deglazed the fry pan with wine (you could use brandy or wine vinegar). Then I added Dijon mustard, lemon juice, crème fraiche and some fresh dill.

I served the pork with the sauce on a bed of noodles.

Need Some Inspiration? Try Dill & Basil!

 

Food on Friday: Dill and Basil was indeed inspirational.  I have selected a few of the dishes in the collection to show you today.

If you would like to see more I suggest you head over to this Pinboard where you'll find over 70 dishes.

The first pic is from Gerlinde from Cooking Weekends – Buttermilk Dill Cucumber Salad – looks fresh and delicious!

 

Strawberry Tart with Basil Cream by Chit Chat Chomp

Perfect Herbed Fingerling Potatoes by I Thee Cook

 

Pesto and Sundried Tomato Torte by Turnips 2 Tangerines

Shrimp Pesto by Lisa of Cooking with Curls

Thai Basil Chicken by Mix and Stir

 

Pineapple & Basil Vodka by Gormandize

Food on Friday: Dill & Basil

 

ON

 

 

 Food on Friday is going 'herby' today.  I love the delicate fronds and flavour of dill.  And basil is the necessary partner of tomatoes.

To add your dish using dill or basil (or both), just put the name of the dish together with your blog name/name into the first Mr Linky box you will find below.  Then paste the url for your post about it into the second box.

I'll be pinning the links to this Pinboard – this is a quick way for you to scan the dishes and choose which ones you want to check out in more detail.

Hope to see you soon!