Like a good wardrobe, my cooking style serves me well fall, winter and spring. The basics in my closet don't change much during those seasons, and neither do the basics on my table. Come summer, however, there's a shift in the way I dress and cook. Both styles are lighter, cooler, simpler.
For one thing, I buy more seafood - salmon and shrimp, for example. When the weather's torrid, there's no pressure to serve seafood hot. I cook it when I want and serve it when I'm ready.
I rely on canned seafood as well. Tuna and pasteurized crabmeat are among my favorites. No further cooking needed here; just open the can, mix in a few other ingredients and serve.
And there are big flavor rewards for so little effort. For my nioise-style tuna salad, just open three cans: one each of tuna, white beans and sliced olives. Toss these ingredients with slivered red onion, olive oil and lemon juice. Take time, if you like, to boil eggs, or pick them up at the grocery salad bar. Serve the salad with steamed green beans. For an even simpler version, add a little chopped parsley to the salad for color and serve it with salted tomato slices.
A bit more refined, my crab salad with fruity-salsa flavorings, above, is equally simple and appealing. Sliced avocados anchor and enrich this lively, colorful dish. If possible, select lump or backfin crab. The larger the crab chunks, the fewer shell fragments to pick out.
Cucumber salad perfectly accompanies a piece of grilled salmon. Salting and draining the cucumbers first intensifies their flavor and makes the salad less watery. Once the cucumbers have released some of their moisture, pat them dry on paper towels and dress them with sour cream, vinegar and dill. If you're not a dill fan, feel free to substitute basil or parsley, fresh or dried.
Grilled shrimp and Greek flavorings (tomato, feta, Kalamata olives, oregano) commingle in a fourth salad, and shrimp cook in a flash. Thread them onto skewers, and so they'll grill up moist yet attractively spotty brown, sprinkle them with a little sugar when seasoning them with salt and pepper. (Remember sugaring the steaks in June's CookSmart column? It works with shrimp, too.)
So next time you reach for the canned tuna to make a casserole, think salad instead. When it's shorts-and-sandals weather, it's time to cook and eat the same way: light and cool.
Copyright 2004 USA Weekend and columnist Pam Anderson. All rights reserved.
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