We love this summer salad with cuttlefish. It’s light, refreshing and accompanied by many great flavours.
All of a sudden, after a long period of coldness, summer arrived here in Switzerland. The weather changed within a couple of days from “very bad” to “perfectly nice” with temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius. Right now, people are longing for light and refreshing meals that seem to be cooling down their bodies.
The present salad features two types of melons, feta cheese, micro greens, peanuts and grilled cuttlefish and is complemented by a nice elder flower-chili dressing (to make the salad a bit spicy). You may also leave out the cuttlefish and serve the salad together with a nicely grilled piece of meat.
Ingredients
Grilled cuttlefish:
- 2 whole cuttlefish
- 3 springs of coriander
- 1 chili
- olive oil
- lemon
- salt
- pepper
Melon-feta-salad:
- 1/2 watermelon
- 1/2 galia melon
- 1 hand full of micro greens
- 90 g feta cheese
- 1 handful of peanuts
Elderflower-chili-dressing:
- 3 tbsp elderflower-vinegar
- 3 tbsp extra-vergin olive oil
- 1 peperoncino
- 1tbsp mayonnaise
- salt
- pepper
Instructions
Melon-feta-salad:
Cut the watermelon and galia melon in similar shaped cubes. Wash the micro greens and put them into a bowl together with the melon cubes. Crumble the feta cheese over the mix and put everything into the fridge. Quickly roast the peanuts in a pan, let them cool down and chop them coarsely. The peanuts shall be spread over the salad once everything else has been prepared.
Elderflower-chili-dressing:
Mix the elderflower-vinegar with the olive oil and the mayonnaise, add a thinly chopped peperoncino and season the sauce with some salt and pepper.
Grilled cuttlefish:
To prepare the cuttlefish you should remove its head, tentacles and innards from the body (the innards and all the hard parts between the tentacles and the body are not used for this salad). Afterwards you pull the inner mucous membrane and the skin off the body. Also there is a transparent "pen" inside, which you have to take out. In between the arms of the cuttlefish, there is the ink sac that needs to be removed. But usually, if you buy cuttlefish in the supermarket, all those things are done already.
After washing all the remaining pieces (in particular the tentacles and the head), you need to dry them thoroughly, so that they may get a little bit crispy on the grill afterwards. Tip: If you carve a criss-cross pattern into the head/tubes of the cuttlefish, the heat of the grill can enter into the meat more easily.
Put all the pieces on a plate and marinate them with chopped coriander, chili, olive oil, salt, pepper and some lemon juice.
Afterwards, put the marinated pieces on a very hot grill - but please note that cuttlefish is tricky to grill. You shouldn't put it longer than 4 minutes on the heat, i.e. only 2 minutes on each side, to ensure that the meat stays tender.
Let the grilled pieces cool down, put them into the bowl with the melon cubes etc., pour the dressing over your creation and mingle everything well - and in the end, don't forget to spread the roasted peanuts over the salad!
Now you are ready to serve! Bon appétit!
