High Desert Table

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salads

Everyday Vinaigrette

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I love to keep a vinaigrette in the fridge for the week. It makes a lunchtime salad easy, it’s easy to grab for dipping raw vegetables in for a snack, sometimes I find myself drizzling some inside a sandwich or in a chicken, tuna, pasta, or grain salad, or on top of all types of grilled vegetables. The bottom line? A simple vinaigrette is more savvy and useful than it might appear.

Everyday Vinaigrette - fresh ingredients in a bowl

I know I’ve talked about it before, but this is a nook-and-cranny kind of dressing. I have to admit they are my favorite kind. Sure, they can be tossed with all kinds of greens but this kind of dressing functions at its best when it’s topically applied, meaning to spoon on top creating an uneven coating. 

Why in the world does anyone want an uneven coating of dressing you might be asking? It all comes down to the element of delight and surprise. Imagine you are eating a salad and with the first bite you taste some greens, some golden beets, and a bit of goat cheese and in general everything is lightly dressed in a bright, lemony vinaigrette. That salad sounds pretty good and as I write this, I’m starting to feel a bit hungry for lunch. Now, imagine you are eating another salad and with the first bite you taste some greens, some golden beets, a bit of goat cheese and then BAM, a burst of lemon, olive oil, honey, shallot, and some savory element you can’t describe (here it’s the garlic that’s mellowed in the olive oil and acid) has found a spot to hide inside a fold of greens. This is the delightful experience of a nook and cranny dressing. It’s the finely chopped shallot and garlic that gives the dressing the ability to concentrate flavors and hide. I sometimes use other ingredients to function in this way, like crushed grapes or diced apples. You’ll probably notice that the olive oil hardens in the fridge. Just remove the jar about 15 minutes before using or run the sealed jar under hot water for a minute.

This is the dressing I make most often and never measure the ingredients. The lemon juice is interchangeable with many kinds of vinegar like red wine vinegar, white wine vinegar, champagne vinegar, and rice wine vinegar. I encourage you to try this by either following the recipe or not. I have complete faith that your eyes and your mouth will guide you.

Everyday Vinaigrette chopped ingredients
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Everyday Vinaigrette

Everyday Lemon Vinaigrette ready to serve
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This everyday lemon vinaigrette makes a lunchtime salad simple, it’s easy to grab for dipping raw vegetables in for a snack, sometimes I find myself drizzling some inside a sandwich or in a chicken, tuna, pasta, or grain salad, or on top of all types of grilled vegetables. The bottom line? An everyday vinaigrette is more savvy and useful than it might appear.

  • Author: Marianne Sundquist
  • Prep Time: 15 mins
  • Cook Time: 0 mins
  • Total Time: 15 mins
  • Yield: 1 cup
  • Category: Salads
  • Method: chop
  • Cuisine: French

Ingredients

Units
  • 1-2 shallots, depending on size, finely chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 1/4 c. freshly squeeze lemon juice
  • 1/3 c. extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 T. honey
  • 1 T. dijon mustard

Instructions

 

Chop what needs chopping, squeeze what needs squeezing, and whisk all ingredients together and store in the refrigerator for up to a week. So simple, so easy. You’re a pro!

Grapefruit Carpaccio

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We are teetering on the edge of summer bounty so last Tuesday I headed to the Santa Fe Farmers Market with the kids to see what we could find. We saw baskets overflowing with all kinds of salad greens, pints of snap peas, bunches of red radishes, and my favorite spring treat, white hakurei turnips (also called salad turnips). And just as we thought we had exhausted our search, we noticed a small table with microgreens and met the farmer behind Matt’s Microgreens, Matt Sherman. He showed us his sunflower, pea, radish, and broccoli shoots and it occurred to me that this is perhaps the best time to tinker with a recipe with microgreens, when flowers and vegetables are naturally in the midst of their seedling (tiny sprout) stage. I carried home a variety pack with a little of each of the four microgreens he had brought with him.

microgreens in a container

While local farms are filled with growing plants, here is the first taste. Ready to nourish us with their nutrient-dense and vibrant kick of flavor. I had been working on another recipe for this week but it will have to wait. When I returned home, I realized I had a few pink grapefruits and a good-sized hunk of parmesan cheese.

15 minutes is all it takes

This recipe practically made itself in around fifteen minutes before we sat down for dinner. One might think that something that tastes so delicious and looks so beautiful would be laborious, or at the very least, time-consuming to make. Not this salad. Grapefruit is the fruit I chose because I love it and I had it but many other fruits would be incredible choices as we move through the growing season. Apricots, peaches, nectarines, and even pitted cherries partially smashed before being spread across the bottom of a plate would work just as well if not better depending on what fruits you love the most. When chile season is in full swing, I guarantee I will be adding thin slices of fire-roasted poblanos along with the fruit for an added depth and grounding of flavor. 

slicing the fruit

I guess it’s a stretch to call this a carpaccio, but it seems right enough to me. Usually, carpaccio refers to meat or fish that is pounded thin and served raw. But with the grapefruit thinly sliced and spread across the bottom of a plate it has a visual similarity that cannot be ignored. And while this recipe could easily serve four as a side, it could also serve two as an entire meal, especially when paired with meat or fish. On the night we devoured this salad for dinner, we had also grilled a single ribeye steak to share and the pairing was better than we could have ever imagined.

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Grapefruit Carpaccio

holding a plated Grapefruit Carpaccio salad
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Usually, carpaccio refers to meat or fish that is pounded thin and served raw. But with the grapefruit thinly sliced and spread across the bottom of a plate, this simple carpaccio recipe has a visual similarity that cannot be ignored.

  • Author: Marianne Sundquist
  • Prep Time: 15 mins
  • Cook Time: 0 mins
  • Total Time: 15 mins
  • Yield: 2-4 servings
  • Category: Salad
  • Method: carpaccio
  • Cuisine: Italian-inspired

Ingredients

Units
  • 1 pink grapefruit
  • 2 T. lemon juice
  • 2 T. extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 t. dijon mustard
  • 1 t. honey
  • 1 t. fresh rosemary sprigs, finely chopped
  • Pinch of salt, pepper and red chile flakes
  • 1 shallot, thinly sliced
  • 4 c. microgreens of your choice, sliced into 1 inch pieces
  • 1/2 c. parmesan cheese shavings

Instructions

grapefruit supreme slices

How to supreme

First, we are going to supreme (remove the pith and rind) our grapefruit: With a sharp knife, trim both ends of the grapefruit. Set a flat side on the cutting board. Remove the peel by cutting around the grapefruit, following the shape of the sphere. Discard the peels and now you’re ready to slice. Make thin round slices and push out any seeds with a small knife. Lay these slices on a family-style platter or divide them between four salad plates.

whisking the dressing

Whisk and mix

In a large bowl, whisk together the lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil, dijon mustard, honey, rosemary, salt, pepper, and red chile flakes. Add the shallot.

Grapefruit Carpaccio tossing the salad

Toss and serve

Right before serving, add the microgreens, and cheese, and toss. Pile this salad on top of the grapefruit.

 

Enjoy!

 

plated with meat
Here’s the carpaccio served with a few slices of cooked steak.

Summer Salad Nicoise

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Sometime towards the end of the 19th century, Salade Niçoise started popping up on restaurant menus along the blue coast of Nice in southern France. The core ingredients have stayed the same— tuna or anchovies, potatoes, vegetables, and a bright and herby dressing, but a host of variations have evolved over the years. This hearty salad is not only a full meal, but it also makes wonderful leftovers. I would even go so far as to say the next day might be even more delicious than the day before because even though it might not look as pretty, all of the tuna and vegetables have had the night to soak up the vinaigrette. 

This is also a salad that can easily pivot depending on the time of year. In the summer when tomatoes are at their peak, it would be a shame to leave them out. Some might argue that tomatoes should always be included, but since it’s early spring, I swapped out the tomatoes for sliced radish and never looked back. 

This recipe calls for three soft-boiled eggs. If serving six people, this would allow everyone to have one half. If you want more eggs, cook more! Also if you want to make the whole salad but are only serving two people at a time, just cook enough eggs for the number of people you are serving. The next day before enjoying leftovers, cook a couple more eggs. 

Let’s talk real quick about the vegetables.

The vegetables in this salad are meant to be tender, but you can easily find substitutions. For example, “new potatoes” are found at farmers’ markets more than many shops because their skins are thin and their sugars have not yet been converted to starch so they are extra tender and sweet. Haricot verts are younger, longer, and skinnier than regular green beans and are more tender. If you can’t find haricot verts, no worries, just blanch regular green beans and once they are cool enough to handle, cut or split them in half lengthwise. 

Crispy potatoes make the magic

Instead of boiling potatoes, I like to roast them with slices of onion, a drizzle of olive oil, and High Desert Herbs, which feels especially appropriate because this Southwest herb blend of marjoram, sage, lavender, rosemary, chile, thyme (which you can also make yourself) is completely inspired by the French herb blend Herbes de Provence which is usually comprised of thyme, basil, rosemary, tarragon, savory, marjoram, oregano, and bay leaf. If you have this blend, by all means, use it. If you want to bring this salad a little closer to home, any of the herbs in the High Desert blend will be lovely. These little crispy beauties are the reason I make jammy eggs to go on top. Just dip a crispy potato in the soft custardy egg yolk and you’ll know exactly what I mean.

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Summer Salad Nicoise

Summer Salad Nicoise plated with sliced eggs
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The core ingredients of this French salad have stayed the same— tuna or anchovies, potatoes, vegetables, and a bright and herby dressing, but a host of variations have evolved over the years. This hearty salad is not only a full meal, but it also makes wonderful leftovers.

  • Author: Marianne Sundquist
  • Prep Time: 15 mins
  • Cook Time: 45 mins
  • Total Time: 1 hour
  • Yield: 4-6 servings
  • Category: Salads
  • Method: Mix
  • Cuisine: French

Ingredients

  • 1 lb. small or new potatoes
  • 1 medium onion (red or yellow), sliced
  • 1 T. olive oil
  • 2 t. High desert herbs, or Herbes de Provence herb blend
  • ½ lb. Haricot Verts or green beans
  • 3 eggs
  • ½-1 seedless cucumber depending on size, thinly sliced
  • 1-3 Radishes, depending on size, thinly sliced
  • 1 c. pitted mixed olives, drained
  • 3, 5 oz. cans, wild harvested pole and line caught albacore tuna packed in oil

For the vinaigrette:

  • ¼ c. extra virgin olive oil
  • ¼ c.freshly squeezed lemon juice, seeds discarded
  • 2 t. dijon mustard
  • 1 T. fresh dill, roughly chopped
  • 1 T. fresh basil, roughly chopped
  • 1 t. honey
  • 1 shallot, finely chopped
  • 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
  • Salt and pepper

 

Instructions

Roasting the potatoes

Preheat the oven to 425 f. Line a sheet tray with parchment paper or foil and gently toss the whole potatoes, sliced onions, olive oil, dried herbs, salt, and pepper together on the sheet tray. Roast for 30 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender when pierced with the tip of a knife. Reserve.

 

Blanching the beans

Fill a medium saucepan ¾ full of water and bring to a boil. Season with salt until the water tastes like the sea. Before you blanch the beans, prepare a bowl of ice water. Drop the beans in the boiling water and cook just until they are tender, around 3 minutes. Using tongs, transfer the beans to the ice water to stop the cooking. Transfer the beans to a clean kitchen towel and reserve.

 

Soft boiling the eggs

In this same pot of boiling water, gently drop the eggs into the boiling water and gently simmer for 7 minutes. Transfer the eggs to the leftover ice water bath until cooked enough to handle. Peel the eggs and reserve.

 

Make the vinaigrette

In a small bowl whisk together the olive oil, lemon juice, mustard, dill, basil, honey, shallot, garlic, salt, and pepper.

Salad Nicoise Prepping the vinaigrette ingredients

Prepare the salad for serving

On a large platter, arrange the potatoes, green beans, cucumber, radish, olives, and tuna. Spoon the vinaigrette generously over the vegetables and tuna. Slice eggs in half and arrange on top. Serve immediately.

 

Citrus Salad with Crispy Prosciutto

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All week I have been excited to share this recipe with you. It’s a recipe that celebrates where we are now, the tail end of winter with spring right around the corner. There’s no doubt the growing season will bring all sorts of incredible fruits to enjoy, but amid all this fruit and vegetable anticipation, sometimes it’s easy to forget that the winter gives us gifts too, the bright delights of citrus. 

This salad is easy to make but doesn’t taste like it. When I worked in restaurants, this is the exact kind of salad I would put on a menu. At the end of the day, we are all chefs of our home kitchens. All that’s needed is trust in ingredients and trust in ourselves. The rest follows with tasting and practice. 

Many Chefs I know say the same thing, the longer they cook in restaurants and the more they travel and explore the furthest horizons of creativity, eventually they find their way back (often after many years), to a simpler approach to cooking. Not out of lack of inspiration or drive, but in pursuit of flavor. This is one of those recipes. Where simplicity and ease intersect with flavor and every ingredient has a role to play— the romaine is clean and crunchy, arugula adds a hint of pepper, the sharp bite of radicchio plays against the bright acidity of the orange and grapefruit, crispy prosciutto adds texture and a perfect hit of salt, while the parmesan and shallot act as very good friends, keeping the salad grounded and sensible. Did you know a salad could do all that? Well, it can. And now you can make it and delight in the perfection of simple cooking, hopefully with as much confidence as any Chef.

Although I should offer a warning. If you make this as a side salad (which you totally can do!), just be prepared for folks at the table to not want anything else. This salad pairs beautifully with avocado, grilled chicken, salmon, shrimp, or even seared scallops.

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Citrus Salad with Crispy Prosciutto

HDT Citrus Salad with Crispy Prosciutto plated and ready for the table
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This citrus salad is easy to make but doesn’t taste like it. The romaine is clean and crunchy, arugula adds a hint of pepper, the sharp bite of radicchio plays against the bright acidity of the orange and grapefruit, crispy prosciutto adds texture and a perfect hit of salt, while the parmesan and shallot act as very good friends, keeping the salad grounded and sensible.

  • Author: Marianne Sundquist
  • Prep Time: 10 mins
  • Cook Time: 15 mins
  • Total Time: 25 minutes
  • Yield: 4 servings
  • Category: Salad
  • Method: Chop
  • Cuisine: American

Ingredients

Units

For the prosciutto chips:

  • 4 oz. Prosciutto slices, torn into pieces
  • 1 t. olive oil

For the vinaigrette:

  • 1 Orange
  • 1 pink Grapefruit
  • 1 shallot, finely chopped
  • 1/4 c. Extra virgin olive oil
  • Sea salt, black pepper, and red chile flakes to taste

For the salad:

  • 1/2 head of radicchio, sliced
  • 1 bunch of romaine, sliced
  • 3 c. arugula
  • Small handful of fresh basil leaves, thinly sliced
  • parmesan cheese shaved with a vegetable peeler into curls
 

Instructions

Making the prosciutto

Make the prosciutto chips: Preheat the oven to 375 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and lay out the prosciutto in a single layer. Rub the olive oil over top and bake until they are bubbling and crispy, around 15 minutes. Transfer the prosciutto to a bowl and reserve.

Citrus Salad with the Prosciutto prepped on a baking sheet

Making the vinaigrette

To make the vinaigrette the first thing we need to do is cut the orange and grapefruit into segments. With a sharp knife, trim both ends of each piece of fruit. Set a flat side of the orange on the cutting board. Remove the peel by cutting around the orange, following the shape of the sphere. Discard the peels and now you’re ready to slice segments: Set the fruit on its side in a shallow bowl. Cut toward the center, along a membrane. Then slice along the adjacent membrane until the cuts meet, releasing the segment. Transfer the segment to a bowl. Repeat until all segments are in the bowl. Squeeze the juice out of the remaining orange membranes, picking out any seeds as you go. Reserve juice and fruit for serving. Repeat this for the grapefruit. By the end, you will have a bowl of orange and grapefruit segments and juice. Add the shallot, extra virgin olive oil, a pinch of salt, black pepper, and red chile flakes to taste. Reserve.

Citrus Salad fruit segmented and ready for thebowl

Making the salad

To make the salad: Gently toss the vinaigrette with the radicchio, romaine, arugula, and basil. Take a taste and add more salt, pepper, or red chile flakes if needed. Garnish the top with crispy prosciutto and parmesan curls.

Citrus Salad with Prosciutto greens chopped in a bowl

Hatch Green Chile Picnic Chicken Salad

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When warm weather arrives, my family can’t wait to get outside. We take more walks, go adventuring around town and look for any and all excuses to light up the grill. This Picnic Chicken Salad is made for days like these. It’s easy to make ahead, easy to make into sandwiches, and versatile enough to bring along on a hike or stash in your picnic basket for tailgating at the opera.

Make it happen

This recipe brings back a lot of memories because it reminded me this week of a lobster salad I used to make way back when I was working as a chef de partie at Avenues in the Peninsula Hotel in Chicago under the helm of Chef Graham Elliot. The kitchen was small and only had room for four of us aside from Chef. Even though we were serving anywhere from three to 20+ course spontaneous tasting menus, somehow night after night we got it done with enough juice left in the tank to wake up and do it again the next day. I think having a handful of so-simple-how-can-it-taste-this-amazing kind of recipes up our sleeves was how we pulled it off with such a small team. That, and the phrase that became a kind of daily mantra “make it happen” which when said to each other was annoying and motivational in equal measure. And somehow at the end of the night, even when we were faced with a seemingly impossible prep list or a stack of tickets from the dining room, by some miracle we actually had made it happen. I would like to publicly apologize to my husband and kids who sometimes hear me accidentally say “make it happen” to them. What can I say? It’s a habit that has worked for me for a long time, so now as a mom maybe it can work its magic at home too, or so I can dream.

Creme Fraiche is the way

You’ll notice that I steer clear of mayo or even sour cream and use creme fraiche instead. Creme Fraiche is the French, fattier and creamier cousin to sour cream. Thinned with a little lemon we get a decadent, bright, and creamy dressing that doesn’t get weighed down with the oily mouthfeel found in mayo. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good garlic mayo on too many things to count, but here I wanted to keep it light and flavor-forward in every possible way.

The meat

You can make this salad as it is here with pulled roasted chicken, or you can use steamed or roasted chicken breasts, roasted or smoked salmon, shrimp, or cooked lobster meat. If you want to leave out meat altogether, just substitute roasted baby or new potatoes, and viola! One of my favorite potato salads of all time. 

Common misconceptions

There is a common misconception that when picnic salads go bad, it is because of the creamy dressing. This is false. A lot of times, a dressing will actually protect the salad a bit because they usually contain some preservatives like sugar or acid, but the bigger dangers are dirty hands or utensils when preparing it and all cut vegetables and fruits because they contain more surface area for bacteria to grow. When you head out into the field with any kind of prepared food, keep it on ice in a cooler or be sure to consume it within 2 hours, or 1 hour if it’s extra hot out. Happy trails!

Picnic chicken salad ingredients fresh from the market
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Hatch Green Chile Picnic Chicken Salad

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This Picnic Chicken Salad is made for warm-weather picnics or backyard barbeques. It’s easy to make ahead, easy to make into sandwiches, and versatile enough to bring along on a hike or stash in your picnic basket for tailgating.

  • Author: Marianne Sundquist
  • Prep Time: 15 mins
  • Cook Time: 0 mins
  • Total Time: 15 minutes
  • Yield: 2 quarts
  • Category: Summer
  • Method: chop
  • Cuisine: American

Ingredients

Units
  • 2 fire-roasted hatch green chiles, peeled, seeded, and diced
  • 8 oz. creme fraiche
  • 1 Lemon, juiced and zested (around 2 T. Juice)
  • 1 large apple, finely diced
  • 1/2 c. finely diced red onion
  • 1/4 c. Minced chives
  • 1 c. Celery and leaves
  • 4 c. pulled roasted Chicken,
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

In a blender, blend the green chiles, creme fraiche, lemon juice, and zest until smooth. Transfer this mixture to a large bowl and add the apple, red onion, chives, celery leaves, and roasted chicken. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Picninc chicken salad ingredients chopped, prepped, and ready to go