Salad Days are Here

With the salad vying for space as a complete meal this season,it is being packed with nutrients. O Experience at Hauz Rani has a salad menu that lists the calorie count as well. Its All Kiwi’d Up is a chiffonade of spinach,roundels of radish,kiwi,cherry tomato and toasted pine nuts tossed in a pesto dressing. “We have tried to keep it light. The mayonnaise in most of the salads is replaced with yoghurt,” says chef Parampreet Luthra. So the Size Zero Salad will get you a bowlful of boiled potatoes tossed in mustard-flavoured yoghurt with tomato and chopped onions for company on a bed of lettuce and topped with almond flakes,or you can opt for the 36-26-36 — a green salad with tomato,cucumber,capsicum,iceberg lettuce and broccoli with a dressing of balsamic vinaigrette served on the side.

For seafood lovers,Patio at the Metropolitan has a mixed seafood salad with coriander and saffron. “We have used a lot of onion in this prawn,calamari and fish salad,simply because onion brings down the body heat,” says chef Tarun Kapoor.

For those of you who want to sit at home and rustle up a mean salad yourself,the chefs have a few pointers. “An olive oil dressing is the best way to keep a salad light. Use extra virgin olive oil and spice things up with a bit of mustard paste added to it,” says chef Bhairav Dutt Joshi of Urban Café that serves a prawn salad with a light citrus dressing. Work up the colours,suggests Luthra. “It is important to balance colours in your salad. Add nuts,sunflower seeds and olives for extra crunch. Add leafy vegetables that can be cooked lightly and then tossed. And if you must try out a fruit in a salad,pineapple is perfect,as it keeps your tongue from drying up,” he says.