Generations Hawaii

On warm Hawaiian summer evenings, colorful main dish salads are a very cool idea for dinner. Salads keep both kitchens and cooks cool, and, with a bit of planning, everyone gets a balanced meal.

If your salads are all of the lettuce-tomato-cucumber-celery variety, however, you might be yawning at the thought of an entire dinner planned around a salad. So here, for your salad enjoyment, are seven ways to jazz up summer salads and make them sparkle.

“Carry out” ideas from your favorite restaurants. It’s usually easier to re-create a restaurant’s salad idea than a complicated entrée dish, so stealing is encouraged here. What’s in that Caesar Salad with Shrimp, or the Chinese Chicken salad that you order again and again? Do some detective work, aided by hundreds of free recipes available online, and enjoy your knock-off salad without a smidgeon of guilt.

Update classics with new ingredients. Try pieces of bok choy in place of celery in that Waldorf salad, fresh seared ahi instead of canned tuna in your Salade Niçoise. Never tried that funny-looking vegetable called jicama (and pronounced “HEE-kah-mah”)? Peel it, slice it and pair it with ham and a cheesy dressing. You’ll love it! Substitute yellow-fleshed sweet potatoes for white ones in potato salads. Like other yellow, orange and gold root veggies, they’re high in flavor as well as in fiber, calcium, potassium and vitamins A and C.

We now have wondrous collections of hard and soft cheeses to choose from, so you can use your potato peeler to crown Italian salads with curls of Parmesan or Romano, or spark up chef’s salads with creamy goat cheeses. Try some tasty greens. Have you checked out the great salad greens available now at local farmers’ markets and your neighborhood supermarkets? Your salad base can be of bright green spinach; crispy Napa cabbage; spicy arugula, endive or radicchio; ruffled red or green lettuces; or mesclun mixes of colorful Hawai‘i-grown salad vegetables. Spicy “greens” work best with less spicy toppings (chicken salad, for example), and less flavorful greens are perfect for more zesty toppings (taco meat, pickled vegetables, dried sausages).

Offer proteins as well as carbohydrates. Vegetables, alone, are fine for side salads, but main-course salads should supply proteins as well as the veggies’ carbs. Proteins can come from meats, nuts, tofu, cheeses, or combinations of legumes and grains such as beans and rice. No time to cook?

Yard House Ahi Crunchy Salad

The new Yard House restaurant on Waikiki Beach Walk serves a Crunchy Ahi Salad as a meal.

2 cups Asian slaw mix
2 cups baby lettuce
1 cup fried wonton strips
½ cup Soy Vinaigrette, divided*
10-12 stems radish sprouts
4 ounces. (5-6 slices) seared
ahi sashimi
½ teaspoon black and white
sesame seeds

In a mixing bowl, gently toss slaw, baby greens and wontons with half of the Soy Vinaigrette until thoroughly combined. Mound lettuce in bowl, creating as much height as possible.
Top salad with radish sprouts and evenly distribute ahi around salad. Drizzle remaining soy vinaigrette around salad and over ahi, garnish with sesame seeds and serve immediately.

*Soy Vinaigrette recipe: Combine 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 2 tablespoons rice vinegar, 1/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard, 1 /2 teaspoon sugar, 3/4 cup chopped yellow onion and a pinch each of salt and pepper in a blender or food processor. While blending, slowly add 1/4 cup salad oil and 1/4 cup sesame oil to emulsify dressing. Refrigerate until serving.

Buy an extra deli rotisserie chicken, strip off the meat and freeze it in small portions for quick dinner salads later. Slice leftover grilled flank steak thinly at an angle and fan the pieces prettily at the side of your tossed greens. Keep a package of shelled, precooked shrimp in the freezer to mix into your potato, rice, pasta or green salads. Add chopped, nutritious macadamia nuts or pecans, hard-boiled eggs and torn slices of the new, precooked bacon to a wilted baby spinach salad for a tasty, protein-rich meal.

Give packaged foods a try. Check out rice, couscous and pasta packages in your health food store or supermarket for great salad ideas. Prepare an 8-ounce package of saffron-flavored yellow rice mix, add broccoli florets or edamame, yellow sweet pepper, green onions, sliced almonds, diced deli smoked turkey breast and a sprinkle of bottled dressing, and your dinner’s no longer “same-ole, same-ole.”

Couscous salads can be made in an instant, and new mixes using brown rice and orzo combinations, colorful pastas and tabbouleh bases can be used to create sensations from Mediterranean to Thai.

Stir in some “jewels.” Want sparkle? Look to dried fruits — figs, dried plums, apricots, golden raisins, cherries and dried cranberries — as salad add-ins or add-ons. They not only add eye appeal to your salad meal, they supply iron, zinc, calcium and potassium. Dried cranberries called “Craisins” come in convenient packages and keep well in your cupboard, ready to perk up green salads or bejewel those couscous creations.

Original BBQ Chicken Chopped Salad

California Pizza Kitchen offers a variety of salads as meals including this Barbecued Chicken Chopped Salad.

Original BBQ Chicken Chopped Salad
Makes four main-course or eight appetizer servings
FRIED TORTILLA STRIPS
Vegetable oil for deep-frying
12 corn tortillas cut into ¼
inch wide strips (about 6
cups)
GARDEN HERB RANCH DRESSING
½ teaspoon dry mustard
¼ teaspoon cold water
2 ¾ cups mayonnaise
1 cup buttermilk
7 tablespoons sour cream
2½ tablespoons apple cider
vinegar
1½ tablespoons thinly sliced scallions (greens
and whites)
2 teaspoons minced garlic
2 teaspoons minced fresh Italian parsley
1½ teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon minced fresh dill
½ teaspoon minced fresh oregano (or ¼
teaspoon dried)
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon minced fresh basil
GRILLED GARLIC BBQ CHICKEN
1 1/3 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/3 tablespoons minced garlic
2 teaspoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons salt
Four 5-ounce boneless, skinless chicken breasts
¼ cup good-quality bottled sweet-and-spicy
barbecue sauce
FOR THE SALAD
½ head iceberg lettuce, cored, rinsed, dried,
and cut into 1/8-inch-wide strips
½ head romaine lettuce leaves, separated and
trimmed, rinsed, dried, and cut into 1/8-
inch-wide strips
12 large fresh basil leaves cut into 1/8-inch-
wide strips
1 pound jicama, cut into ¼ x ¼ x ¾ inch strips
2 cups shredded Monterey jack cheese
1 cup canned black beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup canned sweet white corn kernels, drained
3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
2 pounds ripe fresh tomatoes cut into ½ inch
dice
½ cup good quality bottled sweet-and-spicy
barbecue sauce
¼ cup thinly sliced scallion greens
To make the fried tortilla strips:
1. In a deep, heavy frying pan, heat several inches of vegetable oil to a temperature of 375 degrees. Working in batches if necessary to prevent overcrowding, carefully add the tortilla strips to the hot oil, submerging them with a metal skimmer or slotted spoon.
Fry the tortilla strips until evenly golden, 1 to 2 minutes. Carefully lift them out with the skimmer or slotted spoon and transfer them to paper towels to drain and cool. Set aside, uncovered.
To make the Garden Herb Ranch dressing:
2. In a mixing bowl, use a fork to stir together the mustard and cold water, forming a paste. Set aside for 10 minutes. Add all the remaining dressing ingredients to the bowl and, using a handheld electric mixer at low speed or a whisk, blend together just until smooth, taking care not to incorporate too much air into the dressing. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.
To make the grilled Garlic BBQ Chicken:
3. Preheat a stovetop grill or the broiler. In a mixing bowl, stir together the olive oil, garlic, soy sauce, and salt. Turn the chicken breast in this marinade and leave to marinate at room temperature for about 15 minutes. Grill or broil the chicken breast until cooked through, 5 to 6 minutes per side.
Chill thoroughly in the refrigerator. Cut the chicken breast into ¾ inch cubes and, in a bowl, toss with the barbecue sauce to coat well. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.
To make the salad:
4. In a large mixing bowl, toss together the lettuces, basil, jicama, Monterey Jack cheese, beans, corn, cilantro, dressing and half of the Fried Tortilla Strips. Transfer the salads to chilled serving plates. Surround each salad with diced tomatoes and the remaining Fried Tortilla Strips.
Top each salad with chunks of Grilled Garlic BBQ Chicken and drizzle the chicken with the barbecue sauce. Garnish with the scallions.

Don’t forget fresh fruits. Fill in your Food Pyramid with luscious summer fruits, using your imagination for healthful salad combinations. Place thinly sliced pears over torn curly endive (chicory), romaine or spinach, top with pecan halves, crumbled blue cheese and a Dijon vinaigrette. Toss cubes of Kahuku watermelon with feta cheese and sliced calamata olives to perk up those taste buds.

Fill papaya halves with curried chicken mixtures, and when your tree yields a bounty of creamy avocados, do the same, or slice them over greens, topping them with angle-sliced green onions and a dollop of Caesar dressing. Yes, avocados, which contribute heart-healthy “good” fats to your diet, are considered fruits.

Fresh foods, including herbs from your garden, simple but imaginative combinations of ingredients, light dressings and attractive garnishes. These are all you need for the coolest meals you’ll ever serve on warm, Hawaiian summer evenings.

Shan Correa is a former university English/journalism professor and an award-winning author of poetry and fiction whose freelance work appears regularly in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

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Seven simple ways to make summer salads sparkle

Yard House Ahi Crunchy Salad

Original BBQ Chicken Chopped Salad