Baked ricotta and sweet potato salad

This is so delicious that I started eating it and then remembered I hadn't photographed it which is why it's half eaten. But it looks very good when first assembled and will appeal to those who like prettiness on a plate.

If I had tons of money, one of the things I'd do is hire a chef. Someone to make wonderful little delicate salads for me. I love salads. I'm not talking limp lettuce with enough vinegar to make your hair shine, I'm talking big, blousey salads with lotsa things in them.

The problem is I don't always feel like making them. Since my first pregnancy, sometimes preparing a salad can make me feel a bit sick. I have to do it before hunger makes me stupid, so a bit of pre-planning is required.

I'm hugely fortunate, but utterly deserving, because my partner is a fantastic cook, and I can sometimes boss him into making me a delicious salad, giving him the above reason/excuse and it seems to work. Despite me telling you all this, I've got quite a salad repertoire and this is one of them. It's from Peter Gordon's Salads. I think Gordon (The Sugar Club, The Providores) is hugely underrated by the at-home cook. I love Salads - published in 2005 - because Gordon proves that a proper salad can be a meal in its own right, not just an add-on to lessen the guilt.

The recipe below can withstand a lot of tweaking, so if as you make it you think "I can't possibly eat this much spinach" then don't put so much in. I found 400g waaaaay too much and only used about 150g. Don't know if it's a typo but see how you get on. I've reproduced the recipe here the way he printed it however.

Here's what you need for four worthy people:

400g ricotta

half a teaspoon smoked sweet paprika

quarter of a spoon of cumin seeds - leave them as they are no need to crush

quarter of a teaspoon of ground cinnamon

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

600g sweet potatoes, Gordon says to scrub their skins, I peeled mine cos I didn't read that bit

4 tablespoons of hot water

300g grapes off the stems. He doesn't specify which, I used red seedless. You'd be insane to use seeded ones unless you want your guests to be spitting all over lunch.

2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses (I got mine from a food market)

3 table spoons of grapeseed oil (I used a mixture of olive and rapeseed)

1 teaspoon soy sauce

2 handfuls of olives, stoned and roughly chopped

2 tablespoons of baby capers, rinsed

12 mint leaves, shredded

2 tablespoons thinly sliced chives

400g baby spinach (see above)

First you preheat the oven to 180. Line a baking tray with baking parchment and then slice the ricotta into 2cm pieces. Don't worry if it crumbles a bit. I sliced mine whilst still  in its little round container, and then lifted it out, and it worked fine. Mix the paprika, cumin and cinnamon together with a teaspoon of the olive oil and brush this on the cheese. Sprinkle with sea salt and cook for 15 mins. Take out and leave to one side to cool.

Turn the oven up to 200C.

You're now going to cook the sweet potatoes and grapes together, so pick two containers that will fit side by side. If you don't have, don't fret. This salad is served at room temperature so you can just cook one at a time. I'd probably do the grapes first.

So, cut the sweet pots into thin wedges and place in a small roasting tin. Pour in the hot water, season with salt and pepper and drizzle over the remaining olive oil. I know it sounds mad but just do it. Bake until just cooked - about 20 mins.

Place the grapes in a non-reactive dish and pour on the pomegranate molasses, grapeseed/other oil you're using and soy sauce. Bake for 20 mins. Remove when done and leave to cool.

Once everything is at room temperature, pour the juice from the cooked grapes into a bowl and mix in the olives, capers, mint and chives to form the dressing.

To serve, toss the spinach with half the dressing and place on four plates. Scatter the sweet potato wedges on top, then flake the ricotta on top of that. Scatter over the grapes then pour the rest of the dressing over the top.

Eat. You will enjoy it.   

Beetroot salad dressing

I've been meaning to post this up for ages, as it's my current favourite salad dressing. But I couldn't remember where I'd found it. It was getting pressing as it's coming into beetroot season now (er, I think, at least ours are being harvested).

When I like a recipe that I see in a magazine, I tear it out and put it in a Muji folder that has clear sleeves, so you end up making your own recipe book. It works really well: you can change the order round, very easily get rid of recipes you don't end up using much, and the plastic sleeve that encases every page keeps them clean of cooking splashes.

Here is the one of the pages from one of my many recipe books using torn out magazines put into Muji PP folders. It just so happens it's a pic of some chocolate cheesecake ice cream cookies..also I know that when I post this on Facebook this is the picture that will come up, and I bet more people will read it thinking it's about biscuits/chocolate rather than vegetables.

Here's the same book closed, not easy to take a pic of as not the most photogenic article, but bloody useful.

If I really like a recipe and use it lots, I write it out in my Travelling Cookbook, which is so named as we take it with us when we go away and is a large Moleskine book, much used, much loved and I like that it's all handwritten (I have romantic ideas that my daughters will one day inherit this book and say things like "look, that's Mamma's famous chocolate mousse recipe"). This is what I'd done with the beetroot dressing recipe, which is why I had no idea whose it was. I have about 10 of those Muji folders, each housing 60 sleeves, ergo 120 recipes, so I kept meaning to go through and find the original.

You get the point.

Finally, as is the way of these things, I found it whilst looking for something else. It was by Yotam Ottolenghi, who is fantastic. He gives it as part of a bigger recipe involving gorgonzola, radiccio and toasted almonds, but you can put this dressing on almost any type of salad. Drizzle it on (use one of those squeezy bottles chef use if you have one) as if you actually toss the salad in it, whilst it will still taste delicious, it really won't look so hot.

This dressing makes a fair amount - I'd say enough for six very greedy people, it keeps for a day or two but not much longer so make less if there are less of you.

One small beetroot, cooked (I buy mine precooked, otherwise roast it til soft)
20g honey
15g Dijon mustard
1 garlic clove (I tend to leave this out)
25ml cider vinegar
salt and pepper
120ml extra virgin olive oil

Yotam (cos we're on first name terms, I wish), suggests you blend everything together (I use a mini blender, the one that attachs to my Braun Multistick thing, really useful piece of equipment) and then add half the oil, mix up and then other half. I have to say I just bung it all in and it's fine.