Tag: cold

Cold salads of legumes: 5 ideas – Italian Cuisine

Cold salads of legumes: 5 ideas


A single dish to be served on the hottest days, with legumes as protagonists, such as chickpeas, peas, lentils, which add protein and flavor to salads

In the summer, you don't feel like cooking, but lunches and dinners can be repetitive: Ham and melon, rice salad, caprese, cold pasta. Let's try a different salad? The protagonists are the legumes, such as peas, broad beans, lentils, chickpeas or beans. Combined with vegetables (or fruit), cheeses, aromatic herbs and much more, legumes make the salads greedy, without sacrificing freshness. Here are some ideas!

Bean, cucumber, watermelon and feta salad

A very simple salad: you will need a box of White beans (you can opt for dry ones if you prefer, but the preparation takes longer), a cucumber to peel and cut into cubes, a slice of watermelon to remove the seeds and cut into small pieces, and feta, to crumble on the salad. To add a bittersweet touch you can add slices of Tropea onion. Dress with extra virgin olive oil and salt or, if you prefer, with a yogurt and mint vinaigrette and you're done!

Chickpea salad, yellow and red tomatoes, baby spinach

Chickpeas pre-drunk and drained of their water, tomatoes of mixed colors that give joy to the salad, cut into slices. Then add a few leaves of spinach and, if you want it to have an extra touch, add a can of natural tuna. Season to taste and the salad is ready.

Salad of fresh peas, broad beans, soncino and hard-boiled eggs

shelled peas is Fava beans eliminating the pod. Add a few leaves of soncino, two whole hard-boiled eggs and a few cubes of Parmesan. Season everything with extra virgin olive oil mixed with a teaspoon of Dijon mustard and lemon juice.

Salad of lentils, olives, tuna and peppers in oil

The salad empties the pantry, greedy and very fast, is with the lentils (also in this case it is faster if you already have them pre-cooked in a box), black olives (le taggiasche they are perfect because they give a particular aroma to the salad), roasted peppers in oil and tuna. The fresh touch? Sliced ​​cherry tomatoes.

Spinach, melon, shrimp and chickpea salad

The gourmet salad is the one with chickpeas and i shrimps (you can buy them preless or put them in a steamer for a few minutes). Remove the head and shell, add spinach, diced melon (to be replaced with nectarine if you don't have it) and boiled chickpeas. Dress with extra virgin olive oil and salt.

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Cold rice cake: how to prepare it – Italian Cuisine

Cold rice cake: how to prepare it


For many the cold rice it's the summer dish. But in order not to always bring the same to the table rice salad, have you ever tried to put it in one die?

A cold rice cake

Imagine serving the rice salad not with a spoon, but cutting it into slices like a cake.
It is an original idea to bring a dish taken too much for granted to the table.
You can use the mold you prefer by choosing from a scenographic donut, a simple plum cake or a classic cake.
Here's how it's done.

Compact rice

We suggest you to use a particular rice for this cold rice cake, that is the sushi one because it remains more humid and compact.
The beans remain after cooking united and for this it is possible to use it both to make rolls as in the case of sushi, and a rice cake.
You can find this particular type of rice in all supermarkets and to cook it just follow the instructions on the packaging, but in general it must be cooked like the other types of rice, only that the water must be absorbed.
You can add or not therice vinegar which is foreseen in the preparation of sushi, it depends a little on the taste you want to obtain.
If you want to flavor and color the rice, you can add it to the saffron or of the turmeric and if you love them herbs you can make a sort of very light pesto and add them to the rice once it is cold.

The seasoning

In fact it would be better to speak of stuffed because this is a stuffed cake.
Between two layers of rice you can put whatever you prefer. For example a rice salad classic and therefore tuna, tomatoes and mayonnaise, but also one blue cheese cream with crunchy vegetable cubes if you want a vegetarian variant.
They are also very good slices of baked pepper with a cream of ricotta and basil, or the smoked salmon with guacamole.
The important thing is that it is something soft and creamy that binds the ingredients of the filling to obtain perfect slices.

How to compose the cold rice cake

Once the base is ready, that is the rice, spread part of it in a mold slightly greased with seed oil and then cover with a layer of filling which, as already mentioned, must be compact enough not to get lost in pieces once the slices have been cut.
Then cover with another layer of rice and complete everything with mixed seeds or chopped aromatic herbs. Let rest in the refrigerator for a few hours and then served in slices.
Better to use one hinge mold to obtain an aesthetically perfect cake.

Final decoration

You can leave your rice cake simple, with a white surface, but you can also have fun decorating it in many ways and with many ingredients.
We have already said some seeds. If you use them choose them in contrast, then the poppy seeds for example that are small and black and stand out on white rice. Or use some vegetables cut into confetti or cut out with cookie cutters: starlets of peppers, tomato fish, carrot flowers. If you have a certain manual skill, make some roses with vegetables.
To make the cake similar to a pastry cake, you can also decorate it with cake cheese creams spreading them with one spatula on a regular basis or by applying them to the cake with a sac à poche in a very elegant way.

Browse the tutorial to read more tips on preparing cold rice cake

Cold pasta with seared tuna recipe – Italian Cuisine

Cold pasta with seared tuna recipe


Cook the pasta in advance, sear the tuna at the last moment and pair it with this exquisitely Mediterranean single dish

  • 350 g half penne rigate
  • 250 g fresh tuna
  • 150 g piccadilly tomatoes
  • pitted green olives
  • Taggiasca olives
  • extra virgin olive oil
  • marjoram
  • salt
  • pepper

To prepare cold pasta with seared tuna, boil the penne in salted boiling water, drain, season with a drizzle of oil and spread them in a tray to cool.
Wash in the meantime, cut the tomatoes into wedges and put them in a bowl. Chop 100 g of green olives and add them to the tomatoes. Season with 2 tablespoons of oil, salt, pepper and marjoram and leave to rest. Then mix with the cold pasta.
Flavor tuna on both sides with oil, salt and pepper. Blanch it in a hot pan for about 1 minute on each side, then cut it into slices. Distribute them on the pasta and complete with marjoram and other olives, greens and Taggiasca.

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