Street salad (Insalata di strada)
In Palermo there's a night market called Il Borgo, where all the locals gather to eat at little stalls selling things like chickpea fritters, boiled baby octopus and some stuff that you wouldn't want to eat, like gizzards, spleen and other dirty wobbly things! A lot of the veg stalls have massive cauldrons of boiled potatoes and artichokes to serve to their customers – I guess you could say this is the original fast food – and they tasted absolutely brilliant. Some of the stalls also make a version of this salad, which is absolutely delicious. They tend to dress it and have it hanging around for quite some time so it becomes a bit sloppy and past its best, but the principle of the salad is fantastic and all the locals absolutely adore it. In Sicily you can get these terrific Cedro lemons which are mainly pith and they are amazing in salads – but you may not be able to get hold of them. In this case I wouldn't recommend you use normal lemons as the flavour is quite different.
Estimated Nutrition (whole recipe, rough)
Counts 10 of 13 ingredients — the other 3 aren't in our nutrition table and contribute nothing above, so the real totals are higher.
What these numbers assume — 10 portions →
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Potato | 1 medium (173g) baked | 161 |
| Olive Oil | 1 tbsp (14g) | 119 |
| Orange | 1 medium (131g) | 62 |
| Fennel | 1/2 bulb (87g) | 27 |
| Lemon | juice of 1 lemon (48ml) | 12 |
| Black Pepper | 1 tsp ground (2.3g) | 6 |
| Oregano | 1 tsp dried (1.8g) | 5 |
| Vinegar | 1 tbsp (15ml) distilled | 3 |
| Capers | 1 tbsp (9g) drained | 2 |
| Salt | 1 tsp (6g) | 0 |
| Salad | not in our table | 0 |
| Radicchio | not in our table | 0 |
| Peppermint | not in our table | 0 |
Totals for the whole recipe, adding one typical portion per ingredient — listed above. Quantities in the recipe are not counted, so this is a rough guide only — not suitable for medical or dietary planning.
Ingredients
- 500 g new potatoes, scrubbed
- sea salt
- freshly ground black pepper
- 3 handfuls mixed crunchy salad leaves, such as, radicchio, rocket, romaine
- 1 small handful fresh mint, leaves picked and torn
- 1 bulb fennel, halved and finely sliced, herby tops reserved
- ½ Cedro lemon, sliced wafer thin, optional
- juice of 1 blood orange
- 3 tablespoons good-quality white wine vinegar or herb vinegar
- extra virgin olive oil
- 1 good pinch dried oregano
- 2 tablespoons capers, washed if using salted, chopped if large
- sea salt
- freshly ground black pepper