Tasty beetroot salad in romesco sauce

Barbabietole rosse con salsa di noci
For some reason south Italian supermarkets only sell precooked, shrink wrapped beetroots, which places the vegetable in a rather exotic light. Still raw or almost raw beets taste great in a salad, like this one with walnut dressing and fresh, soft goat cheese.

Serve the salad as a side dish with poultry or meat or as a starter with a nice selection of ‘affetati misti’, but please note that the salad can be quite dominating.

Ingredients
3 medium sized beetroots

12 walnuts
1 clove garlic
1 tomato
1 roasted red pepper
½ del balsamic vinegar
½ olive oil
1 peperoncino

100 g fresh, soft goat cheese (caprino), ricotta or feta.

Preparation
Clean and peel the beetroots under running water.
Boil them for 5 minutes (- the raw vegetable is too hard and difficult to work with and eat).
Slice the beetroot in ultra thin slices.
Blend tomato, roasted and peeled pepper, garlic, walnuts and peperoncino, olive oil and vinegar to a smooth paste. Add salt and more oil and vinegar to taste.
Fold beetroot slices in the dressing and leave it to rest in the fridge for a couple of hours.
Garnish with white cheese before serving.

Eggplant rollups

Involtini di melanzana
Grilled eggplant slices with savoury ricotta filling makes perfect fingerfood and a welcome addition to a buffet of mixed antipasti with a selection of sausages, cured hams and other salted and pickled vegetables. The appetizing starters can be prepared a couple of hours in advance, and it is much easier than it looks.

Ingredients
2 oblong eggplants
Olive oil for frying
200 g fresh ricotta
3 tbsp grated parmesan
1 tbsp capers
fresh basil and mint
Salt and pepper

Preparation
Slice the in rather thin strips, sprinkle with salt and let them sit for a while under pressure to keep them in shape.
Rinse off the salt and pat the eggplant slices dry, before them in hot oil until golden brown.
Let the eggplant cool on a sheet of absorbent paper.
Stir ricotta lightly with grated parmesan finely chopped herbs and capers.
Place a spoonful of ricotta filling on the eggplant, roll up and fasten with a toothpick.
Leave the involtini in the refrigerator until they are ready to be served.

Eggplant and tomato salad

Insalata di melanzane, pomodorini, pinoli e basilico
This salad can be found at virtually every Danish potluck gathering over the summer, and although I’ve never encountered the dish in Italy, the ingredients are unmistakably Italian in the classic cheese, basil and tomato sense. The addition of eggplants helps to meet the challenge of bringing variation to the seasonal abundance of rather bland vegetables that becomes absolutely irresistible in the right company.

Ingredients
2 eggplants
10 cocktail tomatoes
Parmesan cheese
2 tbsp pine nuts
Fresh basil
Balsamic vinegar
Olive oil
1 clove of garlic
Lemon zest

Preparation
Slice the eggplants lengthwise in wedges, sprinkle with salt and let them rest for a while.
Roast pine nuts on a hot frying pan and leave them aside.
Rinse off the salt and fry the eggplant in hot olive oil.
Sprinkle the fried eggplants with balsamic vinegar, let them cool and mix with halved tomatoes, finely chopped garlic, grated lemon zest, lots of fresh basil and shavings of parmesan.
Top with roasted pine nuts before serving.

Sardinian Prawn salad

Insalata di gamberi alla sarda
This dish is based on a Michele Scicolone recipe from ‘Savouring Italy’, and according to the book it is one of very few Sardinian seafood dishes. I think it is terrific both as a starter and as a main course, and once the prawns have been shelled, the dish can be ready in less than five minutes including the time needed to tidy up the kitchen.

Ingredients
200 g king or tiger prawns
6 dried tomatoes
½ fennel
2 spring onions including the green tops
Lettuce leaves
1 tbsp capers
fresh mint
lemon
olive oil

Preparation
Remove shells and intestines from the prawns, and stir fry them swiftly in a hot saucepan with a little olive oil.
Cut the tomatoes in tiny pieces and soak them in boiling water for 1-2 minutes.
Clean and slice fennel and spring onions.
Chop the mint finely.
Mix the vegetables with mint and capers in lemon and olive oil.
Add tomatoes and fried prawns.
Arrange the salad on leaves of lettuce before serving.

Apricot salad

Insalata di albicocche
Last night I watched a rerun of Jamie Oliver in south Italy, where he complained about the innate stubbornness of Italians when it comes to food: People prefer dishes their mothers served while unknown recipes and combinations of ingredients are automatically rejected or treated with the utmost skepticism.

During the show affirmative head nodding left me dizzy, as I have all but given up on trying to repay the kindness and hospitality of Italian friends with homemade food, unless the dishes are an exact replica of their traditional foods. No use introducing foreign ways here. Italians are a population of spoiled schizzinosi and food chauvinists - but given the range and quality of their national cuisine, I think they are entitled to be fastidious. Just don’t offer them a taste of this delicious salad that mixes sweet with salty ingredients, unless they absolutely insist;)

Ingredients
10 mature apricots (or 5 peaches or nectarines)
100 g firm white cheese (I use caciotta leccese, but ricotta salata or feta work as well)
1 red onion
Fresh mint leaves
Vinegar
Olive oil

Preparation
Bring a casserole of water to the boil. Toss in the apricots for a minute, before you slice them in halves and remove the skin and the stone.
Mix a dressing of olive oil and vinegar and pour it over the apricots. Leave them in the fridge for a couple of hours.
Before serving mix the apricots with finely chopped onion, mint and cubed cheese.

Fried squash flowers

Fiori di zucchini fritti
One day around noon my neighbour came over with a plate of crisp, golden, steaming hot zucchini flowers.

– I made these instead of the meat dish today, and I thought you might like a taste, she said.

The delicious snacks were almost gone, before I had time to pick up the camera, so I asked for the recipe, and a few days later I received a bunch of freshly cut zucchini flowers from her garden. Lacking confidence in my linguistic or culinary abilities, she insisted on demonstrating exactly how her fiori di zucchini fritti should be made. So this is the absolutely authentic version alla Cosima.

Ingredients
12 squash flowers
15 g fresh yeast
4 dl white flour
Water
Olive oil
Salt, pepper, parsley and a little garlic
2 eggs

Preparation
Clean the squash flowers thoroughly in cold water without breaking them.
Dissolve yeast in water.
Add flour, salt, pepper and more water till you have a smooth, not too runny batter.
Chop parsley and half a clove of garlic finely and stir it in the batter.
Beat the eggs with a little salt in a separate bowl.
Heat up 1 cm of oil in a large frying pan.
Dip the zucchini flower first in batter and then in beaten egg and fry them until golden brown.
Serve hot.

Marinated salmon

Salmone marinato
I had this dish as a starter at a catering do, but it can be served as main dish as well, thanks to the accompanying salad. Both ways, it makes a stunning presentation with a very clean, elegant taste.

Ingredients
For the fish
1 skinned salmon fillet
Salt
Nigella seeds
Olive oil
Lemon juice
Fresh chives

For the salad
2 carrots
2 peppers (1 yellow/1 red)
Olive oil
White wine vinegar
Fresh parsley and chives

For the cream cheese
200 g cream cheese
Fresh dill

Preparation
Cover the salmon fillet in salt, and let it soak a couple of hours.
Rinse off the salt, dry the fish with kitchen paper and marinate in olive oil, lemon juice and nigella seeds for overnight.
Peel and slice the carrots and roast them quickly in olive oil.
Clean and cube the peppers. Mix with carrots and fresh herbs and sprinkle with vinegar.
Stir cream cheese with plenty of fresh dill.
Roast the salmon on a dry frying pan for a couple of minutes on each side. If the salmon looks like a steak after frying, it can be cut in nice slices with a bright pink center and served. Otherwise I use a cylinder cutout to press the fish in shape.
Arrange salad and cream cheese beside the salmon on each plate and top with chives.

Salad with mango, onion and cucumber

Insalata di mango, cipolle e cetrioli
Generally speaking, I prefer locally grown fruits and vegetables, but hypocrisy prevails when the supermarket once in a blue moon offers fresh mangos. Green mango is great in homemade pickles and chutneys. Ripe mango is perfect for lassi, ice cream and smoothies. And salads made with raw mango pieces stand out as something different, new and refreshing.

As an example try this combination of mango, onions, and cucumber topped with crisp fried coppa or prosciutto crudo. You won’t be disappointed.

1 mango
1 red onion
1 long cucumber or 2 short ones
4 slices of cured ham (prosciutto crudo, speck or coppa)
1 tbsp white wine vinegar

Fry the ham in a little olive oil until it is crispy and curly. Leave it to cool on absorbent kitchen paper.
Clean and cube cucumbers (the short south European version should be peeled and cored before use, while longer north European cucumbers can be used as is).
Peel and slice the onion finely.
Peel and cut the mango in appropriately sized dices.
Mix the greens, sprinkle with vinegar and top with fried ham before serving.

Grilled eggplant

Melanzana grigliata
Burned on one side and mess on the other. That pretty much sums up my experience with grilled eggplant, until I decided to give it a final try. This time I took the time (and the extra bother and dish washing) to salt, press and rinse the eggplants before use, and – hurrah – it worked. So eggplants will definitely be among the stables in our summer menus as a perfect accompaniment to salumi and other types of antipasti.

Fresh herbs are essential to the tastiness of grilled eggplants. If you have not got basil, you could use oregano, mint or marjoram. Or if possible try the royal-deluxe version with combination of fresh parsley, basil and salvia.

Ingredients
2 eggplants
salt
Olive oil
4 tbsp white wine vinegar
2 cloves of garlic
Fresh basil
Grated lemon zest

Preparation
Cut the eggplants in ½ cm thick lengthwise slices.
Put them on a plate, sprinkle with salt and use another plate to hold them down.
Leave the eggplant in the salt for at least 30 minutes.
Rinse off the salt and pour some olive oil over the eggplant slices
Heat up the barbecue (or a griddle) and roast the eggplant for several minutes on both sides
Sprinkle with vinegar, when the frying has finished
Just before serving top the eggplants with chopped garlic, basil and lemon zest.

Caponata

I’m not a fan of the French ratatouille and try to avoid cooked salads or vegetable stews with onion, eggplants and tomatoes when possible, but Sicilian caponata makes a delicious exception. The marriage between sweet and sour, vinegar and sugar, olives and raisins stands out as a pleasant surprise in combination with salty capers and the rather bland eggplants.

Caponata can be used as a side dish for fish and white meats or as a chilled antipasto served with bread or on top of a friselle bisquit, but it can also be used as a main vegetarian course.

According to Best of Sicily Sicilians owe the recipe to Arab invaders. They introduced the south Indian eggplant to the Mediterranean region, and although the plant was considered poisonous until Carmelitan monks introduced the cooked version to the public towards the end of 1400, it soon became extremely popular. Classic caponata alone is said to exist in no less than 37 different versions depending on where on the island the recipe originates.

This recipe is my interpretation of a meeting between Elizabeth David and Michele Scicolone ie. no anchovies and tuna fish, but tomato paste instead of chopped tomatos. It tastes fantastic.

Ingredients
1 eggplant
1 bell pepper (red or yellow)
1 onion
2 sticks of celery
1 dl tomato paste (use the thin passato di pomodoro instead of cencentrato di pomodoro)
2 tbsp raisins
2 tbsp capers
1 dl black olives
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp roasted pine nuts
Olive oil

Preparation
Clean all the vegetables and chop them up in cubes.
Heat the oil in a large casserole, and fry eggplant, onion, pepper and celery until tender. Fry them in turns, if the casserole cannot contain everything at the same time.
Put all the fried vegetables back in the casserole together with tomato paste, capers, raisins, sugar and vinegar. Stir well and leave the dish to simmer for 10 minutes.
Add olives and leave on low heat for another 10 minutes.
Sprinkle with roasted pine nuts before serving.

Homemade worldcup snacks

With the worldcup comes a craving for fortifying snacks that can help control our nerves in front of the television. Saltboiled new potatoes with various dips are a Mediterranean classic and so much more sporty than fat boiled chips or crisp bags with industrially flavoured cream.

Wrinkled potatoes
1 kg small new potatoes
2-3 tbsp salt
Water

Scrub but don’t peel the potatoes.
Place them in a casserole with just enough water to cover.
Add salt and boil for 10 minuttes until the potatoes are tender.
Drain and leave on the heat for a while, so the potatoes become encrusted in a thin layer of salt.
Serve unpeeled warm or cold.

Mojo calabese
4 dried calabrian peppers (or two fresh red peppers)
1 fresh red pepper
2 cloves of garlic
1 tsp cumin
Dried white bread
Olive oil
Vinegar
Salt and chili to taste

Soften the dried peperoni in boiling water for 15 minutes.
Wash the fresh pepper, remove seeds and blend all peppers with olive oil and garlic.
Add cumin, vinegar and 1-2 small dried chilies, if you are using fresh sweet peppers. (I used the dried ones from my ‘ristra’ dried pepper string, and they turned out to be incredibly hot, so no point in adding extra chili in that case)
Blend again and adjust the texture with white bread crumbs.
When kept in a clean glass container sealed with oil, the mojo will keep throughout the worldcup, if it is not finished off during the first matches.

Salsa aioli
3 cloves of garlic
2 tsp salt
2 egg yolks
2½ dl olive oil
Lemon juice

Proper aioli Is supposed to be made with mortar and pestle, which means you peel and slice the garlic and pound, crush and grind them with salt.
Add egg yolks, mix some more and add one drop of olive oil at the time, until you have got a thick paste.
Round of taste with lemon juice.
If you are running late, you can of course use a blender or an electric mixer. (Real lazy cooks use a good ready-made mayonnaise stirred up with lemon juice and loads of crushed garlic, but don’t tell anyone.)

Asparagus with sauce gribiche

Asparagi con salsa gribiche
Eggs and asparagus make a classic combination, and I suppose that is why I started serving asparagus with salsa gribiche. A dish, that soon became a family favourite as cold antipasti or contorni to roasted chicken.

If you think the white asparagus are too much trouble to prepare, they can be replaced by green asparagus that don't need the same amount of trimming. The taste is almost identical.

Ingredients
1 bunch of white asparagus
2 hard boiled eggs
1 tbsp mustard
1 tbsp white vinegar
1 tbsp capers
1 tbsp
1 tbsp cornichons (cetriolini sott’aceto)
Olive oil
Fresh tarragon, chives and/or thyme

Preparation
Peel and trim the asparagus spears from the head down. It is easier if you lay them flat on a carving board and use a potato peeler. Break off the bottom, where it snaps naturally.
Boil the asparagus for 5 minutes with the heads above water.
Peel the boiled eggs, cut them in halves and separate yolk from whites.
With a fork mash the yolk with mustard, vinegar and a little olive oil.
Chop the whites finely and mix them with the yolk mixture (you can use a blender, if you like a smoother texture)
Stir in finely chopped capers and cornichons.
Arrange the salsa on top of the asparagus and leave it in the fridge till serving.

Wild hyacinth onions

Lampascioni
Never thought I would be eating flower bulbs, let alone like them, but the Puglian lampascioni tend to grow on you. They look like shallot onions, but are bulbs of a very common wild hyacinth plant (muscari), that can be collected in the countryside - or bought at the market from more industrious gatherers. As a foreigner, I am the lucky recipient numerous home preserves from friends and neighbours, and one of the most prized gifts is a glass of lampascioni.

The characteristic taste is bitter, salt and sour, but it goes remarkably well with meat and steamed fish or served as antipasti in accompaniment with salumi. Use them instead of onion in a slowly cooked soffrito with carrot and celery or in a red-wine and tomato sauce. Boil and mash them in a puree with white beans or potatos. Or add them to a salad with green beans. The uses of lampascioni are boundless.

There is just one small problem. The wild hyacinth bulb is rarely found outside Puglia. You may come across the preserved kind in a specialist delicatessen, however, and if you stumble over a fresh version make sure to buy plenty. They are easy to prepare if you follow this recipe.

Ingredients
½ kg lampascioni
1½ litre of red vinegar
1 clove of garlic, 3 bayleaf, 10 cloves, 1 cinnamon stic, salt, pepper
Olive oil

Preparation
Peel and clean the lampascioni and boil them in plenty of water for a few minutes.
Drain the bulbs and cover them in big grained salt for 24 hours.
Rinse off the salt.
Bring 1 litre vinegar to the boil with garlic andhalf the spices.
Add the lampascioni and let them boil gently for 20 minutes.
Drain the lampascioni, place them in sterilized glass jars and cover with fresh vinegar and the remaining spices.
Seal each glass with olive oil.

Polenta and mushrooms

Polenta con funghi
The wonder of polenta is its versatility. In the postwar period, cornmeal porridge sexed up with salted anchovies was one of the staples feeding north Italian peasants, and daily use nourished the imagination. Polenta started to appear in a number of dishes with various cheeses, butter and sauces and leftovers were recirculated as crostini or polenta fritta.

This recipe can be served as a main course of polenta porridge or – if you scale down the amounts and grill the polenta slices - as a crostini antipasti. And even though it is extremely easy to prepare, it is also top tasty.

To make crostini, make sure the polenta has set properly and been coated in olive oil, before you try to place it on a grill pan or the barbecue. Otherwise you may end up with a clumsy looking greasy mush.

Ingredients
1 litre water
3 dl (instant) polenta
Salt

200 g mushrooms
2 tbsp dried chanterelles or other wild mushrooms
4 dried tomatoes
1 clove of garlic
Olive oil
Thyme, Rosemary, salt and pepper

Preparation
Soak the dried mushrooms in water, before they are chopped.
Soak the dried tomatoes in boiling water, unless you are using the semi-dried or ‘sott’olio’ variety
Clean and chop the fresh mushrooms, the garlic and the fresh herbs finely.
Heat the oil in a drying pan, and fry all ingredients together for about 10 minutes until all the water has evaporated.
Cover the mushrooms, while you heat the salted water for polenta in a thick-bottomed casserole.
Sprinkle in the polenta, when the water boils. Lower the heat and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon (instant polenta can have a tendency to form lumps, or burn you when the boiling bubbles burst, so take car and remove the pan from the heat for some time while you are stirring).

For primi piatti: Spoon the polenta on to a plate, top up with mushrooms and serve.

For crostini di polenta: Spread the polenta porridge on a sheet of baking paper, flatten it with a knife dipped in cold water, and leave it to cool for at least an hour and preferably until the next day. Cut the cooled polenta in squares, triangles or circles, brush them with oil, and grill them on each side for 3 minutes in the oven. Place a spoonful of mushrooms on top of each polenta slice.

Avocado and rhubarb salad

Any talk of a marriage between rhubarb and avocado will arouse nose-wrinkling suspicion, but come to think of it, the combination is not that far-fetched. Avocado goes well with lemon, grapefruits and oranges, rhubarbs can be very sweet and very sour, and anything that strikes a good bittersweet fat-and-salty balance seems attractive in theory. In this case reality goes to match. The actual salad is surprisingly refreshing and a great accompaniment to red meat, strong cheese and hot and spicy salumi.

The Chinese have used rhubarb for medical purposes for thousands of years. In the Middle Ages Europeans started to import the plant from Asia making it more expensive than opium, saffron, cinnamon and other valuable spices, until Marco Polo found it growing under conditions that resembled Italy. By the way, the word rhubarb derives from Greek 'rha' meaning ‘plant’ and ‘the Volga River’ in combination with ‘barbarum’ ie. ‘foreign’ cf. the Free Dictionary.

Ingredients
2 mature avocados
5 rhubarb sticks
3 tbsp sugar
Lemon juice
olive oil
Shelled pumpkin seeds (pepita)

Preparation
Clean the rhubarb and cut them in 2 pieces.
Mix rhubarb with sugar, place it on a sheet of baking paper, and bake in the oven (200°C/375°F) until tender (for about 30 minutes)
Top the avocado slices with cooled rhubarb compot
Roast the pumpkin seed on a dry frying pan and sprinkle them over the salad before serving.

Cream cheese and caviar

Robiola ed uova di lompo
We are not talking genuine Russian or Iranian caviar here, but cheap substitutes like salmon or lumpfish roe. Bright red or black coloured fish beads with a salty taste and a texture that goes puff in the mouth. Some might say that it looks like leftovers from the 80s, and it no doubt goes well with shoulder pads and glittered lipstick, but anyway … I kind of like it. Especially, when served as party food dip with grissini or as an elegant hors d’oeuvre spooned up on tarelli or as hollowed out squash tube filling. Fabulous.

Ingredients
1 small red onion
100 g Robiola (or ordinary cream cheese)
200 g fresh ricotta or cottage cheese
1 small glass of black or red ‘caviar’
Cutting of fresh chives

Preparation
Chop the onion finely.
Mix the two types of cheese with a fork, add onion and some caviar.
Give the mixture a couple of hours in the fridge to settle.
Dress up with more caviar and chives before serving.

If you wish to serve the cheese in squash cylinders, cut the vegetable in 2 cm slices. Hollow out each slice with a spoon or a stamp out cylinder and give it a quick boil. I can’t quite make up my mind as to whether it is easier to boil first and hollow out later or the other way round, suppose it depends on your tools, but both methods work.

Homemade potato croquettes

Crocchette di patate
I know these potato croquettes can be bought surgelato for next to nothing in any Italian supermarket, but even the best readymade quality does not compare to the real homemade thing, which is in fact quite easy to produce. All you need is a couple of boiled potatoes, some parmesan, an egg, a heap of dried bread crumbs and some olive oil. The result is a junk food deluxe that ousts ordinary French fries, chips, crisps and other fried potato products.

Croquettes are mostly served as a side dish to accompany meat, but I prefer to have one among the antipasti. That way you only have to make one or two pieces per serving and the rich food is limited to a modest snack.

Ingredients
1 big potato
2 tbsp grated parmaggiano
1 egg
2 dl dried bread crumbs
Olive oil for frying

Preparation
Peel the potato, cut it is small pieces and let them boil until tender.
Mash the potato with a fork and mix it with salt and grated cheese
Prepare a dish with beaten egg and one with dried bread crumbs.
Form the mashed potato in eight oblong pieces, dip each piece in egg and roll it in breadcrumbs.
Heat the olive oil in a casserole and fry the croquettes until golden brown. (According to the numerous and popular food programmes on Italian television fat contents in fried foods decrease if you use ample of oil for frying – I suppose it is something with shorter frying times and less oil absorption).

Grilled eggplant

Melanzane grigliate
Behind the salumi, formaggi and delicacy counter in any Italian supermarket, you’ll find a dish of ‘melanzane grigliate sott’olio’ with perfectly grill-striped slices of eggplant covered in a spiced up dressing of oil and vinegar. It looks like one of the most simple salads on earth, but believe me, it isn’t. Or perhaps it is just me, who has not got the knack.

I have tried drying the slices out with salt, brushing them in oil and frying them on the barbecue, but every time they end up burned on the outside and raw on the inside. If – after numerous trials – I manage to make a prettily striped specimen, the pattern disintegrates along with the eggplant meat the moment it is submerged in vinegar and oil. I never succeed.

Therefore I have decided to buy my ‘melanzane grigliate sott’olio’ readymade. And when I want to serve grilled homemade eggplants, I use the recipe below. It does not preserve the vegetables for months (- or days for that matter), but the taste is great – and it never fails.

Ingredients
2 eggplants
salt
1 peperoncino
olive oil
½ lemon - zest and juice
Fresh basil

Preparation
Wash the eggplants, cut them in wedges, and sprinkle with salt. Leave them to drain for 30 minutes.
Rinse out the salt with water and toss the eggplant in olive oil with a touch of peperoncino.
Spread the eggplant wedges on a sheet of baking paper and bake them for about 20 minutes in a pre-heated oven (200°C/375°F), until crisp and lightly brown.
Squeeze lemon juice over the eggplant and sprinkle with grated lemon zest and lots of fresh basil before serving as a side dish or with salumi as part of a plate of antipasti.

Green greens salad

Insalata verde misto
This time of year it is easy to develop an insatiable craving for fresh salads, and this greens-in-green version definitely stands out as one of my springtime favourites.

As a guiding principle the salad mixes all the green greens in season, just make sure to include asparagues, rucola (ie rocket or arugula), cucumber and dill to achieve the interesting and addictive combination of tastes.

Ingredients
For the salad
10 green asparagus
1 cucumber
2 fists of rucula
Other green salads, fresh spinach, green bell peppers, beans, mint, etc.
Top of 4 spring onions
2 tbsp roasted pine nuts
Lots of dill

For the dressing
1 tbsp mustard
6 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp white wine vinegar

Wash the asparagus, break them into smaller pieces and give them a three minute boil.
Whip mustard with olive oil to a mayo-like cream. Stir in vinegar.
Drain the asparagus and mix them with the dressing while still warm.
Chop the cucumber in small pieces. If you are using one of the coarser Italian types of cucumber (cetrioli or caroselli) make sure to peel it and remove the seeds.
Clean and chop all the other greens and toss the lot with the asparagus in the dressing.
Sprinkle with roasted pine nuts and a load of dill.

Orange and avocado salad

Insalata di arance e avocado
Orange and avocado may sound like an odd pair, but in fact they suit each other perfectly. The sweet acidity of the fruit counterbalance the fatty richness of the avocado, olives add a touch of salt, and roasted almonds and a few raw onion rings provide a nice crispy crunchiness. An altogether appetizing way to start a meal.

Ingredients
2 oranges
2 ripe avocadoes
1 red onion
½ dl black olives
½ dl skinned and roasted almonds
Juice from ½ lemon
Olive oil

Preparation
Peel oranges and avocadoes and cut them into nice slices.
Mix with a dressing of olive oil and lemon juice.
Sprinkle with onion rings, olives and almonds.
Serve