Serious Eats: Recipes
Dinner Tonight: Portuguese Salad
We got this summery side dish from the Summer Shack Cookbook, a wonderful book that the fiancée and I have not been able to use that much. It's all about cooking East Coast seafood on the beach, and after our move to the Midwest, we've been really struggling with the concept. Though I did use it last year, I honestly forgot we had the book until the fiancée pulled it out to look for side dishes. When she called out this recipe for Portuguese salad, I didn't really know what it meant. What did a New England cookbook have to do with the Portuguese? Turns out there are many Portuguese descendants in New England, and a lot of them were fisherman.
But none of that is truly important because the dish that results from a New Englander's take on a Portuguese salad is essentially glorified gazpacho that hasn't been diced to bits. It's tasty—the cucumbers cool the sweet roasted peppers, and the bright vinegar balances it all out. It's certainly not a hard salad to love and it made a great side for the grilled steaks we paired it up with.
About the author: Nick Kindelsperger is a co-founder of The Paupered Chef, a blog dedicated to saving time and money while enjoying food in every way possible. He sells wine for a living and lives in Columbus, Ohio.