on last saturday, we had a dinner party with 4 friends + 1 baby.
our friends’ baby girl is 11-month old, and just started walking recently, quite firmly most of the time, but clumsily from time to time. it looked as if her cute little bum covered in nappies was working as a weight so that she would not hit her head first. it was the first time for us to host a 11-month old, and we realised how dangerous our apartment could be for small babies. there are sharp corners everywhere, such as our display shelves with lots of small objects with hard surfaces, movable tv board with untreated edges, small yet tall sculpture on a heavy concrete block… while covering all the sharp corners with plastic tape (a strict order from myself), my husband agreed that going forward he would take baby friendly architecture into consideration in his future designs.
anyway back to the party. the menu of the day was as follows:
appetizer: la salade ala maman
salad: romain lettuce, endive, carrot, walnuts with balsamic dressing
main course: chicken marbella with jasmine rice
dessert: tarte au citron + yummy cakes (contribution from our friends)
and today, i would like to share the recipe for “la salade ala maman.” (you can follow the link below for the chicken marbella & la tarte au citron)
this recipe is inspired by the tomato salad which my best friend’s mother once cooked for me. my best friend is french, and whenever i went visit her & her family in paris, her mother always greeted me with her superb cooking. unfortunately she passed away 2 years ago and i never had a chance to ask her the exact recipe. after a number of trials and errors, however, i finally made it very close to hers, and i proudly admit that our guests tonight were very, very happy with it.
la salade ala maman
ingredients (serves 6):
6 large tomatos, peeled, then sliced (1cm thick)
1/2 shallot, chopped
1/2 tea spoon of salt (about 3g or so i think)
1 table spoon of red wine vinegar
3 table spoons of salad oil
a sprinkle of sugar
directions:
1) place the tomato slices on a large plate
2) in a small bowl, mix all the ingredients except for the tomatoes and mix well
3) pour the dressing over the tomato slices, and let it rest for half an hour before serving
if anyone is interested in the recipe for chicken marbella, you can refer to my earlier posting (which i totally forgot about). this time, i used white wine vinegar instead of red wine vinegar, and mixture of brown & red sugar. not too much difference in the taste, but the density of the sauce came out thicker this time, i believe due to the brown sugar.
the recipe for the tarte au citron can be found on the japanese website called “cookpad.” the one i used is this one (thank you very much shok for sharing your recipe!). i may have mentioned it before that cookpad has a wide range of very useful & easy recipes, so i highly recommend it if you can read japanese.
i know it’s not perfect, but when i took it out from the oven, it looked so good and impressive that i could not help but smile 🙂 it is a great dessert for a home party – it is not that hard to make as long as you have enough time, and i am sure that you can make your guests smile as well.
SMALL TOKYO KITCHEN 
[…] – La salade a la maman is a recipe passed on to me by my best friend’s mum who unfortunately passed away seven years ago. I’ve recreated her tasty salad numerous times since she taught me this wonderful recipe. It is one of the simplest, yet the most delicious salads I’ve ever tasted to this day. She told me she almost felt embarrassed to tell me the recipe because it was nothing special. But everything she cooked for us, including this plain sandwich with ham (Jambon Burret á Paris), was purely divine. […]