Keep Adding Salad

Recently, I chanced upon a book that has been stashed away in my cookbook shelves. I've made a couple of salads from it and today's was an improvisation, or more accurately, I changed several ingredients. The book has contributions from several people and the salad on which mine is based, Green Bean Salad II, is that of Reva Rudley, Matawan, N.J. I am now forever grateful to Ms Rudley because this seems to be a very adapting and forgiving salad, and I am loving it. Here's today's adaptation of it.

Yard-long beans: 1 pound
Boiling salted water
(Extra virgin olive) oil: 5 tbsp
Onions, chopped: 1.5-2 cups
Hard-boiled eggs: 3 (Optional)
Celery, chopped: 2 ribs
Mushrooms, sliced thin: 2 handfuls
Cashew nuts, whole, halved or broken: 1/4-1/2 cup
Red wine vinegar: 2 tbsp
Salt
Freshly ground pepper
Boiling salted water

Cut beans into one-inch pieces and cook them in the boiling salted water till barely tender. Drain.

Heat three tbsp oil and fry the onions till tender and light gold in colour. As I was using EVOO, I made sure I didn't heat it much and let the onions take their time.

If you're using mushrooms, you can sweat them in the same pan after removing the onions and keeping them aside.

In a large salad bowl, place the beans and add the onions. Grate the eggs over them. Add celery, mushrooms and nuts.

Combine the vinegar, oil, salt and pepper and pour it over the salad. Toss very very gently, otherwise it becomes a damp affair.

You can veganise this salad by omitting the eggs. The above recipe makes six servings.

The original salad had green beans, walnuts and green peppers in it. What other vegetables and nuts and other foods do you think could star in this salad? Do let me know.

Here are some other salads on my blog:

Quinoa salad (Vegetarian, contains honey)

Broad Bean Salad (Vegetarian, contains Feta)

Beetroot salad (Vegan)

A Liteness of Being (Vegan)

Or check here for a list.