Waldorf salad

The Waldorf salad is really a seasonal salad for me because it's traditional to serve along side some Danish Christmas dinners. I could eat it all year and I really love it but somehow I manage to forget about it for a while and usually it pops right back into my mind again when Christmas starts knocking.

This year has been no exception and it was only because I had apples in my fruit basket I thought of making it for my family gathering this weekend. Sadly I forgot to take pictures and had to borrow this one from another website. I hope you'll like this salad as much as I do and maybe it'll become one of your traditional Christmas side dishes...

Picture borrowed from: Den store danske

Waldorf salad (8 servings)

6 apples (your favourite kind with a slightly acidic taste to them)

500 grams seedless grapes (blue or green which ever you prefer)

150 grams walnuts (save some of the whole ones for decoration)

500 ml sour cream

2-3 stalks of celery or 1/4 - ½ teaspoon of celery salt (I use the celery salt)

If you want to use fresh celery then skip ahead and start from number 2. 

1. Start by preparing the dressing for the salad: Pour the sour cream into a bowl and mix in 1/4 teaspoon celery salt to begin with. Let it sit for about 5-6 minutes and have a taste. It has to taste of celery but not too salty. If your up for more taste of celery then add in the remaining 1/4 teaspoon. Just be careful - I season this 3 or 4 times before I have a flavour that I'm satisfied with, so go slow and add in the celery salt little by little.

 

2. Cut the grapes into halves and cube the celery (if you haven't used the salt instead). Put them into a large bowl and give the apples a good wash. Cube the apples and add them into the bowl.

3. Chop the walnuts coarsely and put them in with the rest of the salad.

4. Pour the dressing/sour-cream into the bowl as well and mix it all together so that the dressing/sour-cream covers it all. 

And that's that - let the salad rest in the fridge for a couple of hours or make it the day before (it only gets better!) and serve it along side a good roast, beefsteak, roast duck, goose or even turkey.

Bon appetit...

Funky prawn cocktail with mango and tiger prawns

This our 17th dish in the food project is probably the dish where I've deviated the most from the recipe. My husband and I are not very big fans of basil, romaine lettuce and well asparagus is just so darn expensive. I replaced those ingredients with ones we liked and so I got a really good result. I also made another dressing as we don't get along with chili at all in our household. We really liked this dish with my small adjustments and I will defiantly make this again. It was so easy to make and healthy as well. I served bread along side my cocktail just to get a bit carbohydrates in there as well.  

I'll post both my dressing and the one in the original recipe. Once again Carina beat me to the punch and has been so kind as to translate the recipe, so I'll just repost what she has already posted a few days ago - see her experience with this recipe on her blog HERE

Funky prawn cocktail with mango and tiger prawns
16 tiger prawns without shell, but with tail (I used Royal Greenland shrimp)
1 mango
2 romaine lettuces (I used iceberg lettuce)
8 green asparagus (I replaced this with freshly podded peas and cucumber)
50 grams of sunflower sprouts or bean sprouts (I used small bean sprouts)
20 leaves of basil (I left this out)
2 tablespoons of extra virgin oil (I left this out)
2 limes cut in halves (I left this out)
salt

Phi Phi Island-dressing:
1 dl of mayonnaise
1 dl of crème fraiche (9%)
1-2 teaspoons of Sriracha chili-sauce
Zest of one lime

My dressing:

1½ dl sour cream

1 teaspoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1 tablespoon tomato paste

 

Boil the shrimps in lightly salted water for 2 minutes  (This is only if you use uncooked tiger prawns or shrimp)

Peel and cut the mango into 3×1 cm slices (I cubed the thing when I was done cutting around that darn stone in the middle)
Chop the salad finely. Break the “wooden” lower part of the asparagus and boil them in lightly salted water for 2-3 minutes. Let them cool down and cut them into mouthpieces. (If you use peas and cucumber instead then pod the peas and rinse them under running cold water and let them dry off. Meanwhile cut the cucumber into smaller cubes. You can remove the seeds if you don't like them.)

Dressing: Whisk the mayonnaise together with crème fraiche and chilisauce. Season it with lime zest and salt.
Turn the shrimps, bean sprouts, asparagus and basil leaves together olive oil and season it with salt. 

My dressing: stir together sour cream and tomato paste. Then add in the Worcestershire sauce and the soy sauce to your liking. I don't use exact measurements for this dressing as it comes out best if you just feel your way. 

Arrange the shrimp cocktails: Pour the dressing in the bottom of the glasses and then salad. Add the shrimp/mango salad on top and serve it with a half lime.(I didn't bother with the whole arrangement as you can see in the picture below - I didn't have glasses that would fit a whole dinner size cocktail so I just used our regular dinner plates)

Bon appetit...