A few weeks ago I attended a lovely cooking event in London with Haywards Pickles. The idea behind the event was to celebrate summer and to help educate everyone on how to make the humble salad into something nutritious, delicious and to make the thought of a salad more exciting!
I do love a good salad, but I need it to be quite a hearty one, either with some meat or cheese such as halloumi. In the past I would NEVER have chosen a salad off a menu, but nowadays I often do if they sound really good, and we’ll sometimes have a halloumi or feta salad at home.
So I was really interested to try out some other dishes inspired by salads and pickles at the event. Haywards are the pickling experts and have been producing pickled vegetables since the 1800s. They make loads of different pickles, including pickled onions, gherkins, beetroot and Piccalilli.
We all watched the lovely Denise show us how to make a few of the dishes using Haywards Pickles and other ingredients (and they were all really simple), and then we got into little groups and had a go at making some of them ourselves. We made the very simple and tasty Brie and Beetroot Ciabatta Slices. I would never have thought to put pickled beetroot on something like that, and I really wouldn’t have imagined olives going with the other ingredients, but they were really nice, and I would totally make them again.
I LOVED the Goat’s Cheese and Caramelized Onion Tart, made with Haywards Pickled Onions. Again I just wouldn’t have thought of using pickled onions in something like this, but it makes it a more simple recipe to make, and has a great tanginess which goes really well with the dryness of the goats cheese. I’m definitely going to make this soon (you can find the recipe below). The Piccalilli Curry is also something I’d really like to make soon; I love the idea of the twist of the pickle in the curry, and it’s really quick to make.
I’ve definitely been inspired to cook with pickles after seeing how delicious they can be in recipes, and how they can add something to a dish. I’m looking forward to trying out the recipes for myself, as well as adding my Haywards Pickles to some of my salads.
Here’s the recipe for the Goat’s Cheese and Caramelized Onion Tart if you’d like to make it yourself.
Photography by Kaye of fordtography.co.uk and myself.
I was invited to the Haywards event, but all thoughts and opinions are my own.
They all look and sound delicious. I absolutely love pickled onions (well, anything pickled really!)
I love pickled onions too! They all tasted so lovely! xx