Recipe — Summer Mayonnaise Salad

Hope you all had an amazing holiday weekend!

It’s been a while since I posted my last recipe but that doesn’t mean that I’m not cooking. There are so many recipes that I repeatedly prepare on a daily basis. Usually that includes homemade meals that are light and easy, using especially fresh seasoning from the local farmers market. Anyone can cook delicious food. What you need is patience, planning, and a  sharp knife. Start with simple recipes with only a few steps to follow, and then advance. You can replace a lot of the packaged and processed food with things you can make at home. You’ll find that cooking from scratch is better tasting and much more healthy provided you use fresh, non-GMO ingredients. By learning and preparing food yourself, you have control over which ingredients are been added to your food.

Most of the ingredients in this beginner type recipe are very simple. This salad I prepared often is easy, healthy, colorful, and well combined with many the nutrients you need. (I’m not a nutritionist, so you may want to research your particular nutritional needs yourself and make any necessary adjustments.)

This Brazilian style Summer salad can be served with or without any kind of meat you want. Below are photos with two suggestions that I served this past weekend.

Eat, enjoy and let me know how it tastes!

Summer Mayonnaise Salad with Salmon Fillet, and Bison Ribeye Steak

Ingredients: Serves 2-4

Time (for the salad): 45 minutes, plus chilling

• 275g (9.8 oz) approx. 2 organic carrots washed, peeled and chopped
• 310g (11 oz) approx. 2 red organic potatoes (cooked and diced)
• 130g (4.7 oz) organic green beans (cut off the knobby ends, and sliced)
• 2 organic brown eggs (hard-cooked, peeled and diced)
• ½ cup red seedless organic bell pepper, washed, diced
• 2 tbsp organic celery, washed and diced
• 3 tbsp pitted black olives, sliced (I used Calamata pitted olives)
• 3 tbsp canned organic sweet corn, drained
• 2 tbsp fresh scallions, organic rinsed and finely sliced, (green part only)
• 2 tbsp fresh cilantro, organic rinsed and finely chopped including stems
• 2 tbsp organic red onions, peeled and finely chopped
• 1 red organic firm vine tomato, washed, seedless and diced
• 3 tbsp mayonnaise (I used Primal Kitchen Mayo Real Mayonnaise with avocado oil)
• 2 tsp organic extra-virgin olive oil
• Salt and fine white pepper to taste, for the salad (I used Himalayan Crystal Salt)
• 0.495 lb salmon fillet (preferably wild caught)
• 130g (6.2 oz) Langoustine lobster tails, fully cooked – peeled, and drained (to be add later on top of the salmon fillet)
• 327g (0.72 lb) Bison Ribeye Steak, (boneless ½ inches thick, room temperature)

How to Prepare:

1. Cut the potatoes in half and place them in a small pot, add enough cold water to cover the tops of the potatoes, along with adding ½ teaspoon salt.
2. Turn the burner on high and bring water to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low or low, cover the pan with a lid, let cook for about 12 minutes. Check the potatoes with a knife to see if ready, then drain the potatoes in a colander to cooler.
3. Set a steamer basket insert into a larger saucepan and fill with water to a level just below the steamer. Bring to a boil. Add green beans without the knobby ends, and steam for about 5 minutes. Once the beans have cooked, drain and refresh the green beans in ice cold water to stop cooking, the green beans should be crisp.
4. Set another steamer basket insert into a large saucepan and fill with water to a level just below the steamer. Bring to a boil. Add washed and peeled carrots, and steam for about 8 to 10 minutes depending on the size of the carrots, cover the saucepan with a lid but don’t cover it completely, leave a small gap to allow some steam to vent, let steam to your desired degree of tenderness. Stick the knife into the carrots to check if they’re ready. Once the carrots are steamed, drain and let cooler off.
5. In small saucepan place the two eggs with enough cool water to cover them. Slowly bring to a boil over medium heat, when the water has reached a boil, covered and cook for about 10 minutes. Transfer the eggs to a colander, place under cool running water to stopping cooking.

Salad Preparation:

In a large glass bowl: add diced potatoes with the skin on, carrots, sliced green beans, red bell pepper, diced celery, sliced black olives, organic sweet corn, sliced scallions, chopped cilantro, red onions, diced tomato, diced hard-boiled eggs, mayonnaise, extra-virgin olive oil, and finally some seasoning with salt and fine white pepper for taste. All ingredients should be well but gently mixed with a large spoon. Cover the salad bowl with plastic food wrap and refrigerate until mealtime.

Meanwhile: Rinse the salmon in cold water, while scraping off any scales and pulling out the bones (if any) one by one with a tweezer. Then pat and dry with paper towel.

Season the salmon on both sides with salt and fresh ground black pepper, (depending on taste  you can add other herbs as well). Coat with good extra-virgin olive oil or white wine, leave aside for couple of minutes.

Preheat oven to 400°F. Line baking sheet with foil and place salmon on it. Cook for about 9-15 minutes, also it depend on the thickness of the fish, bake until the fish is golden and crisp.

Use a wide spatula to transfer fillet to a serving plate to ensure that the fish does not fall apart when you remove it from the baking sheet.

Top salmon with langoustine lobster tails as follows… it’s easy to prepare: Just sauté the langoustine in a hot, non-stick pan with a bit of olive oil or butter, add a pinch of salt and ground black pepper, simmer for 1-2 minutes with two thin slices of lemon, or a squeeze of lemon, in medium heat. When done, immediately scoop up the langoustine with a spoon and top the salmon, and serve with chilled salad.

How to Prepare the Steak: Only coat lightly with canola oil and sprinkle both sides with salt, fresh ground black pepper. Then immediately place the steak in the middle of a hot dry non-stick pan over medium-high heat until it begins to be seared to your liking.

Cook for about 20 minutes on both sides, flipping the steak with tongs. This is for medium-rare steak, if you prefer medium, cook a bit longer (relative to thickness).
Serve whole or slice thin and fan onto plate, with your chilled summer salad.

Notes: 

• This salad can be refrigerated for two to three days. If you’re using a homemade mayonnaise for this salad I recommend you don’t keep it this long.
• I know there are too many mayonnaise varieties out there. But I personally like the “Primal Kitchen Mayonnaise” for many reasons. It contains only naturally found ingredients, no processed or genetically engineered junk. It’s even Keto certified and is Paleo friendly. I’ve been using it for a very long time in many ways and it simply tastes delicious.
• One of my favorite methods, for one because it’s less messy too, is baked or broiled fish. It’s one of the easiest and least time consuming approaches and results in buttery and juicy fish — delicious.
• Also if you’re cooking multiple steaks, clean your pan/skillet very well. Because it needs to be free of oil and juice, clean, for the next steak. You won’t have any significant smoke if you follow these instructions. The steak can even be cooked inside a small apartment kitchen. In the above photo the Bison looks good because (a) it’s a good cut and soft, (b) before cooking I trimmed most of excess fat.
• Also I used and recommend this Smoked Sea Salt which gives a very unique smoked flavor to your recipes.
• The peeled langoustine lobster tails, fully cooked – is wild caught and packaged in a frozen, imported from Chile. I let the lobster drain inside the colander at room temperature. So when you sauté, the frozen water is already gone.
• Also the salad can be made for more people just multiple the ingredients. If you want more flavor in this salad: add more black olives, and especially red onions. Because raw ingredients taste the best and make for healthy salads, sandwiches, and guacamole.
• Oooh – one more tip which may help when cooking the steak: I tied twine around the steak tightly, so the juice stays more concentrated inside the meat and cooks better when moist, giving that delicious juicy smoke flavor to the steak.