The salads at Leon restaurants, a UK fast-food institution, are known for their originality, natural ingredients and flavours. Their Leon Big Salads cookbook features many favourites. This warm Short Ribs With Rice Noodle Salad features gochujang, or Korean chili paste, which gives these sticky short ribs a savoury and spicy kick (we like the Chung Jung One brand).
Leon’s guide to building a salad
Texture is key
Most of the salads we really love have an element of crisp or crunch. You can do this with croutons (including brioche, naan, chapatis or pitta), with nuts (sweet and roasted, spiced, whole, crumbled or flaked), with seeds (especially toasted and popped), with raw vegetables or fruit (radishes, chicory, celery, cucumber, pepper or apple), with roasted
Not all salads are raw and cold
In fact, very few salads taste best when they’re truly cold. Where possible, bring salad ingredients, such as tomatoes, cucumber, cheese, cold meats and cured fish, to just about room temperature before serving, as cold will damp down their flavour. (Equally, be safe – don’t leave food out of the fridge for long periods.) Beyond northern Europe, many countries serve cooked vegetables either warm or at room temperature and call them salads.
Go crazy for colour
We love playing with colour in our salads – but not just because we like a pretty plateful. Eating a wide range of coloured fruits and vegetables gives us the best chance of getting a variety of polyphenols into our diets. Polyphenols are useful chemicals that are involved in things such as moderating inflammation and boosting gut health. We get them from dark green vegetables, red and purple fruits and vegetables, olive oil, spices such as turmeric, herbs, nuts, seeds, coffee, some teas and dark chocolate.
Don’t be afraid of fruit
Apples and pomegranates are familiar salad ingredients, but try strawberries, raspberries, roasted or very ripe peaches or nectarines, all of which go fabulously with creamy cheeses, such as mozzarella, burrata or goats’ cheese, along with tart flavours like balsamic vinegar, and perfumed herbs such as basil, mint or tarragon. Alternatively, use oranges or grapefruit, either sliced, or squeezed into dressings.
We love herbs
Even the simplest salad can be elevated with a handful of herbs: just try adding chopped fresh chives to soft lettuce and cucumber, dressed with olive oil, lemon and salt. Keeping a selection of herbs in pots on a windowsill is much better value than buying them in plastic bags.
Savoury-salty-sour-sweet
A good salad will be balanced – just sweet, salty, sour, spicy, savoury, crunchy or soft enough, with the different flavours playing together or against each other. When it comes to inventing a salad of your own, hold all this in mind.
Gochujang Short Ribs With Rice Noodle Salad
Ingredients
Rice Noodle Salad
- 5½ oz dried rice vermicelli noodles cooked according to packet instructions and tossed together with 1 tsp sesame oil
- a big handful of coriander leaves
- leaves from 2 bushy sprigs of mint torn
- 3½ oz cucumber in matchsticks
- 2 tbsp finely chopped shallot
- 3 radishes finely sliced
- ½ stick lemongrass tougher outer removed and discarded, finely chopped
- 10 romaine lettuce leaves chopped
- lime juice
- sesame oil
- fish sauce
- chopped kimchi
Gochujang Short Ribs
- splash vegetable oil
- 4 beef short ribs, on the bone (at least 1.2 kg/2lb 10oz)
- 2½ tbsp tamari
- 2½ tbsp mirin
- 2½ tbsp sesame oil
- 4 heaping tbsp gochujang paste
- 7 cloves garlic crushed
- 1½ in fresh ginger peeled and grated
- 1 onion halved and finely sliced
- up to 500 ml hot beef, chicken or vegetable stock
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 375°F (170°C). Heat the oil in an ovenproof pan with a tight-fitting lid over a medium heat. Add the ribs and brown all over, then remove from the heat and arrange so the bones face down in the pan.
- Stir together the tamari, mirin, sesame oil, gochujang, garlic and ginger, then spoon over the meat. Add the onion and pour 300ml of the stock around the ribs, without washing off the sauce. Add the lid and place in the oven for 2 and a half hours, basting with the sauce after 1 and a half hours and adding 100ml stock if needed (the sauce should be reduced and sticky by now). Cover again and return to the oven for the final hour until the meat is shreddable (if it’s not, return to the oven for 30 minutes with another splash of stock). Set aside until cool enough to handle, then transfer the meat to a plate.
- Discard the excess oil from inside the pan, keeping 1 tbsp aside, leaving the sticky-sweet sauce and soft onions. Pull the meat from the bones and shred into pieces. Return the meat to the pan and discard the bones. (If the meat and sauce are now cold, warm gently over a low heat.)
- Add the remaining ingredients, apart from the kimchi, to the cooked noodles. Add the reserved spiced oil from the pan and toss. Divide among 4 plates, top with the shredded beef and spoon over some of the sticky sauce from the pan. Serve the chopped kimchi in a little bowl on the table so your guests can decide if they want to try it – its hot sourness cuts brilliantly through the rich, sweet, spicy beef.
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Hearty green lentils are paired with crisp vegetables like snap peas, cucumbers and radishes, then tossed in a creamy herb tahini dressing brightened with lemon and garlic. Naturally vegan and rich in plant-based protein, this vibrant salad is easy to customize with seasonal herbs.
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