Summer Salad Platters + a Cooking Contest with Prizes!

Go fresh and local! During the most bountiful days of summer, salad platters are the best way to dine—and a terrific way to entertain.

Today, I’m sharing some of my favorite salad-platter ideas for using great ingredients from local farms, gardens, and markets. Better yet, I’m holding a contest. Everyone who enters wins a prize; plus, premium prizes will be awarded to the top-three winners! See below.

Salad Platters Are the Way to Go

A few weeks ago, when I wrote about my discovery of the wonderfully non-frenzied Global Greens farmers market, some readers commented on the lovely photo of the salad I made from what I found there that day:

My French salad platter, with green beans, roasted potato salad, roasted beets, and a canape of a superior butter (I used Kerrygold Irish butter) slathered on a baguette slice, topped with radishes, salt, and pepper.

Well, there’s more where that came from.

My salad platters are all inspired by the Iowa-born French-food cookbook author, Richard Olney. Born and raised in Marathon, Iowa, in 1927, he lived for most of his adult life in an obscure village in Provence, where he enjoyed the creative life—painting, entertaining, cooking, writing, and gardening. He also restored a crumbling Provençal farmhouse decades before it was cool.

Salades Canailles (aka French Salad Platters).

In his influential cookbook, Simple French Food, Olney offers his “Salade Canaille” (scoundrel salad) as a way to “formulate a few odds and ends into a bright, coherent, and often exciting statement.”

The introductory notes to his salad recipe run about 10 paragraphs, but the gist is this: you simply combine some of the most beautiful things you’ve found from your garden or farmers market and add some goods from your best butcher shop or seafood purveyor (or simply chickpeas or white beans or another legume) — and go to town. Improvise, improvise, improvise.

You don’t need a recipe. You need ideas. Here are a few I’ve made lately.

French Salad Platter with Lamb (or Beef, or Pork, or….)

Olney says any kind of braised meat you have can be added to a salad platter—pot roast, pork shoulder, or in this case, lamb arm steak—anything goes.

French salad platter with oeufs-mayo, sliced vinaigrette-tossed mini sweet peppers, roasted potato salad, spicy greens, braised lamb arm chop (meat from Whole Foods), vinaigrette-tossed green beans with chives. You could use any meat here.

Of course, you can also do burgers, chops, and steaks as well.

Potato salad and a Southwestern salad I picked up from Nourished DSM, with sliced, pan-fried ribeye.

Vegetarian? Yes!

The salad platter idea makes perfect sense for vegetarians—simply add some legumes to make it hearty.

From left: White been salad (shallots, fresh herbs, black olives, vinaigrette), oeufs-mayo on spinach with a sprinkling of julienne radishes, roasted beets with olive oil, braised leeks with shallot vinaigrette, and roasted rainbow carrots.

Chicken? Of course!

Vinaigrette-tossed shredded Swiss chard with onions and pistachios, olive-oil-tossed farro, roasted capon thighs, roasted carrots with a few sauteed chard stems (they taste like beets!) and pistachios.

You know I go nuts for boneless, skin-on capon thighs, right? You can find them at the Iowa Food Coop Storefront—they usually have some stocked in the freezer. Call ahead and make sure they do, and check their hours before you head out. (4944 Franklin Ave Suite G, Des Moines; 515-978-1034.) As of press time, their storefront hours are: Monday, Tuesday, and Friday 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Of course, you can use regular chicken cuts, but it is very hard to find boneless cuts that have the skin on—and I adore easy-to-eat boneless cuts and a crispy, crackly skin for my salad platters.

And another capon- or chicken-anchored platter:

Roasted capon thighs (you can use chicken, of course), quinoa, and a green goddess salad with fresh mozzarella balls that I picked up from Nourished DSM.

Seafood Works Beautifully, Too

Roasted asparagus with a sprinkling of toasted almonds and grated Parmesan cheese, salmon patties, butterhead lettuce with green onions. A little dill weed.

Purists, be gone! This might make some of you roll your eyes, but yes, sometimes I pick up these little prefab chipotle salmon burgers (made from wild salmon, by the way) from Aldi. Sure, your homemade salmon patties are much, much better, but … these are decent enough for a quick lunch or light dinner on a hot summer day. (P.S.: Grilled salmon or any other fish would be just as easy and surely even better).

I serve the above salad platter with a little aioli made with mayonnaise, garlic, lemon zest, a little lemon juice, a few chives. Salt and pepper, of course. A little dill weed.

Let’s Make This Interesting, Shall We? (A Contest with Prizes!)

Third prize: A free copy of my book.

Have I inspired you to make a salad platter? Snap a photo of it and send it, along with a very brief description, to: wini@winimoranville.com. I’ll put the entry photos in a post (no names will be shown), and ask readers to vote. I’ll publish the top three winners—with names—in a future post.

Oh, and it doesn’t have to be French. The only criterion is that it has to serve least two diners (more if you wish). The multi-ingredient platter should be designed to be set onto the center of the table in “serve-yourself” fashion.

Everyone who enters wins!

Just for entering my contest, I’ll sign you up for a free one-month subscription to Wini’s Food Stories, which gets you access to all of my archives as well as premium posts that are for paid subscribers only. What if you already subscribe? I’ll extend your paid subscription by one month at no extra cost to you.

First-Place Prize: Bragging Rights + a $50 Gift Certificate to Nourished Des Moines

A few of my summer salad platters got a head start with something from Nourished DSM, Beth Jackson’s pre-order kitchen. The chance of winning this prize is definitely worth snapping a photo and sending it to me!

Note: Just to clarify, this contest isn’t affiliated with Nourished DSM—I'm purchasing the gift certificate on my own.

Second-Place Prize: A Paid Subscription to Wini’s Food Stories

A one-year paid subscription to Wini’s Food Stories. (If you’re already a subscriber, I’ll send a free one-year gift subscription to the recipient you designate or I’ll extend your subscription by one year at no extra cost to you).

Third-Place Prize: My French Cookbook

A signed copy of my cookbook, Everyday French Cooking: Modern French Cuisine Made Simple. U.S. addresses only.

DEADLINE: Midnight, August 25, 2024.

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