This is not one of the healthiest, but certainly one of the tastiest salads I have made. And it's a winner with those who think salad is just 'rabbit food'. Heat is provided by the rocket leaves, chillies and spring onions, and the flavoursome juices from the chorizo and tomatoes mean that you don’t need to spend time making a separate salad dressing. The flavours are already there. They just need to be ‘cooked out’ of the sausage.
Pulses are always a good addition to a salad, especially if the salad is a main dish, rather than a side dish. They provide a great soft texture next to crunchy leaves, and can make a salad that little bit more filling, without the need for bread.
Spicy Chorizo and Butter Bean Salad
Ingredients
- One large tin of butter beans
- The juice of one lemon
- Rocket
- Spring onions
- Black pepper
- Fresh chillies
- Olive oil (to taste)
- Fresh tomatoes
- Coriander
- As much chorizo as you like
Preparation time: 25 minutes
Serves two as a main dish or four as a side salad
Method
- Make a shallow cross in the top of the tomatoes. Place them in a bowl and pour boiling water over them. Leave them for about 10 minutes, until the water is cool enough to touch, and the skins of the tomatoes start to peel off.
- Meanwhile, dice the chorizo into small cubes and finely chop the chillies. If you are using ready-sliced chorizo, just cut the slices into quarters. Heat a pan, add the chorizo first, and then the chillies and cook for about 10 minutes. The heat will melt the fat in the meat, so you will not need to use oil in the pan. You are not looking to make the chorizo crispy, but to release the oil and flavours from the meat. Leave to cool.
- Drain the tomatoes and peel off the skin. Chop the tomatoes into small cubes. If you are really fussy and fortunate enough to have good, fleshy tomatoes, you can remove the seeds.
- Put the rocket and tomatoes into a salad bowl.
- Add finely chopped spring onions and a large handful of roughly chopped coriander to the bowl.
- Drain and rinse the butter beans. Add them to the bowl along with the cooled chorizo and chillies. Be sure to pour all of the oil onto the salad.
- Finally, add the lemon juice and a sprinkle of black pepper. Mix the salad to make sure all the ingredients are evenly distributed. You can add some extra olive oil if you think the salad is too dry.
Lauren Rose-Smith - Lauren Rose-Smith is a managing editor at Newsdesk Media Group and is interested in freelance feature writing for lifestyle magazines. She ...
