Recipe: Blueberry, Spinach, and Feta Pecan Salad
I cannot claim credit for this salad, I’ve seen a similar combination of ingredients on instagram and it somehow got stuck and for the life of me I cannot recall the exact location of the picture that I’ve seen it from. However, the salad I’ve seen on that sizzling summer afternoon while fasting and browsing instagram for iftar meal inspirations was of a kale and blueberries salad with feta cheese and pecans. I’m not even sure about the pecans, it could have been walnuts or nothing at all, but the moment I saw it I began tasting juicy blueberries bathed in salty feta brine and I knew, I just knew, I had to prepare that salad for my iftar.
The recipe called for kale and kale I cannot stand, perhaps if one day I happen to come across a fresh non-smelly patch I’d change my mind but for the time being no, me sorry. Lettuce seemed too crunchy and watery for the salad and rocket -which is the Kuwaiti nation’s favourite by the way and you can find it in almost every other dish- I cannot stand. Rocket (jarjir) is too peppery for the delicate berry flavour. Then I thought spinach! Spinach is perfect, the right subtle flavour and crunch texture, so spinach it is!
Normal feta cheese sounded boring to me, why settle for just feta when you can dress it up? What goes well with feta? I thought I’d drench my salty low fat feta crumble feta cubes with crushed oregano and plenty of lemon zest. You know what? We have a winner! I’m so getting myself a fresh baguette and stuffing it with zesty lemony feta for breakfast after Ramadan!
The pecans I’ve just bought so they were pretty fresh and I was intent on not using any utensils other than the lemon zester and the salad spinner therefore I simply sprinkled the pecans over the blueberries. If you have time, I expect crushing the pecans and heating them up on a pan with a hint of really good authentic maple syrup would elevate the flavours of the salad even further! Imagine them now in a hot white baguette? The crunch, the maple, the feta, the lemon zest, the oregano. Oh my!
Now we come to the matter of dressing. I don’t know what the dressing used in the original salad was, but I had a new kitchen gadget on me that I wanted to try and decided to get to use it. Its a salad dressing recipe + mix bottle that I got from the kitchen section of M&S in London. On the side of the bottle the recipes for five different popular dressings are mentioned and all you have to do is follow the recipe (or half of it), pour your ingredients inside, replace the cap, shake well and you are done!
I chose the balsamic Vinaigrette dressing, I thought it would work well. The dressing was perfect by the way, only the suction lid on top of the bottle is a bit of a hassle to open once its stuck, that’s the downside of that easy gadget.
And that’s it! Just assemble all five ingredients on a plate, pour the dressing over, and you have a light and juicy salad with a hint of summer.
That is by far the easiest salad I’ve ever made and is the tastiest as well. Sweet and salty, juicy and crunchy, and not that heavy on the stomach.
I will let you know if I ever turn it into a sandwich, I might not stuff it with blueberries though but you never know, you never know.
