STAB Salad

Smoked Trout and Bean Salad! This salad has become a regular in our house.  It's fresh, crunchy, full of healthy ingredients and a zingy dressing.  You can replace the smoked trout with smoke salmon but make sure it's the best quality you can afford. We are lucky to have an incredible deli (The Gourmet on Main in Blackwood) that stocks delicious smoked trout.  Take this recipe as a base and you can add corn, anchovies, use tuna instead of trout, add some chilli to spice it up.  I'm just providing the base - but it's up to you to get creative!  
What you will need: 
Salad
1 bunch parsley (roughly chopped)
1 smoked trout/ or 2 fillets (broken up into bite size pieces)
4 Eggs (hard boiled and diced)
2 Lebanese cucumbers (diced)
4 stalks of celery (diced)
1 avocado (diced)
1 punnet of cherry tomatoes
1/2 spanish (red) onion
2 Tbsp Dill (finely chopped)
1 400g can 4 bean mix  (rinsed and drained)
1 400g can chickpeas (rinsed and drained)


Dressing
Juice of 1 Lemon
1 Tbsp Dijon Mustard
1 Tbs Wholegrain Mustard
2 Tbs Olive Oil
2 Tbs Apple Cider Vinegar
Salt & Pepper


Very basic instructions for this salad!
1. Chop up all the vegetables and herbs as above and add to a big bowl with the smoked trout and beans.  
2. Hard boil the eggs (add eggs to cold water, bring to the boil on the stove, let this boil for 2 minutes and then turn off, wait 15 minutes, drain the water, add some cold water to cool the shells and peel), dice the eggs and add to the salad mix
3. Mix all the dressing ingredients together in a small bowl with a whisk and add salt and pepper to taste.  
4. Add the dressing to the salad mix, stir through and serve.  


Gardening: 
Growing your own parsley and dill is easy!  It's much more cost effective than buying herbs from the supermarket or greengrocers every time you want to use some, or a whole bunch.  
I can't tell you enough just how convenient it is to walk out the backyard with some scissors and come back to the kitchen with a bunch of herbs, freshly picked and they smell delicious!  Parsley will grow in the ground or in a pot - just make sure it's in a place that gets some sun and some shade, is well drained and don't forget to feed it every now and then with some compost or manure.