Colorful - Crunchy Salad

Colorful Crunchy Salad

I prefer calling this salad Joyful-salad. Why? You will know the reason when you and your family see and taste this colorful salad. Salad as full meal/accompaniment with food/second course of food served just after soup or appetizers any form one may take they the healthy food providing much needed dietary fibers along with vitamins and minerals. Though some form of salads is taken in stir fried form I prefer my salads totally raw and as colorful as possible. When salad is made from colorful leafs, fruits and vegetables and dressed with interesting ingredients it becomes enticing, tasty and very nourishing. Salads are also very good for hydrating and detoxifying our system. May be all types of green are not available every where and all time, that does not mean one can not enjoy this salad. Use as many leafy greens as possible and enjoy the salad.

Preparation Time: 15 min.

Servings 2 large servings

Ingredients Required for Making Colorful Crunchy-Salad:

• 5-8 Leafs of Oak leaf Red

• 5-6 Leafs of Oak leaf green

• 5-6 Leafs of Lollo Roso

• 5-6 Leafs of Iceberg Lettuce

• 5-6 Leafs of Lettuce
• Add as many as green crunchy leafs as possible. I have named just few ones.

Some of The Greens For Colorful-Crunchy salad

• 8-10 small Turnips any variety

Turnip

• 250 gm. (8-10) Cherry tomatoes

• 2 Medium size Carrots

Carrots

• 1 Small radish

Radish

• 1 Medium size Cucumber

• 4-5 leafs of Celery /Parsley

• I/2Red Bell pepper

• 1/2 yellow Bell pepper

Ingredients For Dressing and Garnishing Of Joyful-salad:

• 1/2Lemon (2 Teaspoon juice of fresh lemon)

• 1/4Teaspoon of White pepper Powder / Black pepper powder

• 1/4Teaspoon salt /Salt to taste

• 1/4Teaspoon Honey

• 2 Teaspoon Roasted Sesame seeds

• 8-10 Roasted Pistachios (Opt5ional)

• 1/2Teaspoon Olive oil

Direction For Making Dressing For Joyful-Salad:

• Squeeze the fresh lemon.

• In a small glass / steel bowl take

• Fresh lemon juice
• Teaspoon Olive oil
• White pepper powder
• Salt
• Honey and beat nicely to make a homogenous dressing for the salad.

Dressing for Colorful-Crunchy Salad

Direction For Making Colorful-Crunchy Salad:

• Wash all ingredients (Greens) nicely in flowing water.

• Drain all water by keeping the washed ingredients in a sieve.

• Remove the central white color hard part from the leafy ingredients. Discard the hard part and keep the soft leafy part for salad.

• Remove the tip and root of turnips and cut them to 2 cm. pieces.

• Wash carrots and remove the fibrous roots and tip with green on it.

• Cut the carrots to 1 cm cube or rounds as per your choice.

• Peel the washed cucumber and remove the seedy part if the seeds are hard. Cut the peeled and cleaned cucumber to 1-2 cm. cubes.

•  Wash, remove the seeds and cut bell pepper to 1 cm. cubes.

• Cut cherry tomatoes to half. Shred the washed, drained soft leafs of salad to size of your choice (2-3 cm. at max).

Leafs for salad Washed, drained and shredded

Diced Cucumber,Cherry tomatoes,Radish, Turnip, Yellow and Red Bell Pepper and Carrot 

• Mix all ingredients in a big bowl and pour the dressing on the salad ingredients.

• Mix with a wooden fork or toss the salad 4-5 times to make sure the dressing has mixed in the salad uniformly.

• Crush roasted pistachios.

• Sprinkle the roasted sesame seeds and roasted crushed pistachios.

• Serve immediately.

Colorful Crunchy Salad

 Tips:

• Do not cut the leafs, always break them. Cutting the leafs makes the juices to flow out fast from the leafs once salt is added thus making the salad soggy.

• Thorough washing with flowing water is essential to ensure cleanliness of the leafy ingredients.

• Never wash the salad leafs after breaking them to small pieces.

• Dressing can be made an hour or two in advance and kept in fridge.

• Dress and garnish the salad just before serving otherwise the juices will flow out from the salad greens and salad and garnishing seed will go limp and soggy.

• In rainy season it is advisable to wash the salad leafs in salt water.

Suggested Variations:

• Fennel leafs / mint can replace celery / parsley.

• 15-20 Roasted and crushed groundnuts can be added instead of pistachios.

• Pistachios can be replaced with 4-5 crushed kernels of walnut.

• Beef tomatoes can be cut to 2 cm. cubes and added instead of cherry tomatoes.

• Shredded boiled chicken can be added by non-vegetarians.

• Par-boiled pieces of French beans/ broccoli / cauliflower can be added.

• Lemon juice can be replaced by any fruit based vinegar.

• Mint leaves can be crushed and added to the dressing before mixing to the salad.

• If beef tomato or cherry tomato are not available then any variety of tomato can be used. Do not stop eating good green Joyful crunchy salad for the lack of one or two ingredients.
• Roast 15-20 seeds of ground nut remove the peel, pound and add to the salad just after adding the dressing.
• Roast the garlic with the peel, remove the peel, pound and add to the salad just before adding the dressing.