Saturdays are for staying in your pajamas all day.
This is the first weekend—in what feels like many weekends—that I have nothing to do. No one to visit. No doctor’s appointments to keep. No festivals to attend. No dinner parties. Nothing.
I don’t even have a book I’m close to finishing that, hence, would take up all my time. No crazy, laborious recipe scheduled into my weekend. No real reason to even make a blog post. But hey, lets not go crazy. I’m not going to forget about my ol’ Cav and Cod just ’cause I got a case of the lazies.
So here’s a recipe for your lazy weekend—and if you live in the Northeast, with all this glum and gloom weather today, you know what I’m talking about. Go ahead, get into your pajamas. Sit on the couch with a cup of tea. Do nothing today. I promise it will feel great.
And then, when you do feel like getting off the couch for a few minutes, throw together this salad. It’s quick, it’s colorful, it’s amazing. The mangos are a perfect component to erase any ill-feelings you have about tomatoes right now (because oh, my, god, when is it ever going to be tomato season again, it should be now!) and they work so harmoniously with watercress’s stringent quality. And, even if you think that the dressing seems just a bit too intense to work (1 tablespoon fish sauce!) or that there’s too many herbs, follow the directions exactly and trust me—it works.
Mango and Watercress Salad
serves 2-4//adapted from Gourmet
For Dressing:
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/2 tablespoons Asian sesame oil
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon Asian fish sauce
1-2 tablespoons sugar
2 dashes hot sauce such as Tabasco
Freshly ground white pepper to tasteFor Salad:
3/4 lb watercress, coarse stems discarded (about 6 cups loosely packed)
1 3/4 cups thinly sliced Napa cabbage (from 1 head) *
1 (1- to 1 1/2-lb) firm-ripe mango, peeled, pitted, and cut into 1/2-inch dice
1/2 cup coarsely grated carrot
1/4 cup torn fresh cilantro leaves
1/4 cup torn fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup torn fresh mint leavesWhisk together all dressing ingredients in a small bowl, then whisk in salt to taste.
Gently toss all salad ingredients together in a bowl. Add just enough dressing to coat, then serve immediately.
* The easiest way to do this is with a mandoline. Set it to the thinnest slice and the cabbage slices will be the perfect thinness.
Subscribe to C&C
Sweet Corn Soup
Zucchini Basil Soup
Simple Tomato Salad
Bacon-wrapped Yellowtail
Apricots Poached in Vanilla-Thyme Syrup
Summer Squash Carbonara
Steak with Parsleyed Butter
Casa Maya, Highbridge
The Fine Diner, Clinton
Elements, Princeton
May 3rd, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Sounds like fun, lounging in the P.J.s all day long! … err … guess I should go buy some … ;-)
May 3rd, 2008 at 4:55 pm
That salad looks nice and fresh and good. I like the use of the mango in the salad.
May 3rd, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Oh what I wouldn’t give right now for a day of lounging in my PJ’s but with 2 young ones it is just not to be!!! That salad looks great though. Nice, fresh and sunny!
May 4th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Looks so light and refreshing. And I agree, saturdays are best spent in PJ’s.
May 4th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Ah, the good old days before kids. Enjoy your PJ days while you can!
P.S. The salad looks delish!
May 4th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
What a perfect Saturday! I’d be lounging around in jammies and baking up dozens of cookies… that would be my perfect Saturday!
I absolutely love watercress when it’s at it’s greenest and freshest. It’s hard to find good bunches of it around here. I’ll keep this salad recipe for when I find a good bunch :)
May 5th, 2008 at 4:51 am
Gorgeous salad! I usually have my watercress salad quite plain with a spicy dressing, but this sounds like an interesting new way to dry it!
May 5th, 2008 at 7:32 am
What a perfect-sounding weekend! And that salad… mmmmmm!
May 5th, 2008 at 8:15 am
That’s my kind of day, and my kind of salad. If I could stay all day, every single day, with my pjs (not the same one of course ;) I would.
I trust you completely on this one, Robin. If you say 1 tbsp, 1 tbsp it is.
May 5th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
yesterday was like that for me. total relaxation for the first time in a long time. I’m glad you got to have a weekend like that, after all your stresses lately.
pretty salad too. ;)
May 5th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
How refreshing! I so want a day to do nothing!
May 5th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
those are the absolute best weekends. I haven’t had one of those in far, far too long! Perhaps I should take inspiration from you Robin :-)
May 7th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
I’m jealous! It has been so long since we have had a weekend like that. They are so worth the wait when they happen though, but always go by too fast!
September 13th, 2008 at 10:55 am
[...] Watercress & Mango Salad [...]