The Complex Salad

In 2008, my first proper boyfriend took me for a truly memorable meal. Tootsies in Oxford. I still can’t understand why Tootsies closed down. They must have had a food hygiene rating of at least three stars. Although, saying that, my solid local Indian had four stars in their heyday and were closed down a few weeks ago for what the local media sensationally labelled ‘a beetle problem’. My favourite Indian these days is Boris Johnson’s local. Yeah, go on, unfriend me already. They do fantastic shashlik. #shashliksB4politiks

Better than Tootsies.

Notwithstanding what sealed the demise of Tootsies’, they served me one of the greatest meals a (then) jaded (then) vegetarian could have hoped for: a roasted butternut squash salad with grilled goats cheese. You can get something similar these days in Prezzo (the Arosto salad), but I always tend to ruin it by ordering fries and tipping them over the plate. You might frown but the fries actually improve the dish. And I guess that’s how I knew Tootsies’ salad won. I left those fries in their tiny tin container. 

Can scratch these two off the baby names list, then. 

I have made a few attempts at recreating this salad in the intervening seven years, but never before as successfully as this evening. I think it’s because I thought I’d be blogging it (you do tend to get that idea when your left hand is permanent with-camera). Blogging your nosh really ups your game. 

Brother's gift to me from Madrid. Super good.

I was cooking for my family tonight, since it’s a few days before I’m back into the uni groove, where my diet is predominantly bagel. So I figured I might as well go for vitamin gold while semester two scurvy is but a beige term away. 

I’ve called this a ‘complex’ salad. If this dish were an architectural feature, I wouldn’t quite put it in Bernini Baldacchino territory. It’s more of a friendly Roman arch than a forbidding, Gothic pointy one. More of a soft, cosy, coffered ceiling than the humbling, neck-craning Cappella Sistina. Knock the finials and crockets off Notre Dame, and we’re about there. What I'm trying to say is that this salad is just complex enough.

Pool of oil in the well of the squash. A vegetarian's basting juices/ambrosia, lemme tell you.

I got a rating of 9.5/10 from the fam. I think my brother brought the average down because he had a pre-dinner KitKat Chunky. He was carb-loading after his first day on the ‘Cycle to Work’ scheme. I don’t think he appreciated the meal as much as he ought because he essentially ‘chased’ (club-speak?) this salad after ‘necking’ the confectionary. He’s also really competitive when it comes to cooking with goats cheese. He fancies himself another connoisseur of the complex salad and as a result won't give me the credit I deserve. Maybe he can be a guest poster on the blog and we can put it to a public vote.

Voila!

The bitz:

[Rocket, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, roasted butternut squash, olive-oil toasted crostini, grilled goats cheese, toasted pine nuts, balsamic caramelised onions, salt, pepper, plate.]