Continuing with a summer theme, Magdalena Chávez from El Piano turns her thoughts to salads. She shares two of her favourites.


ENSALADA ANDALUZA

This is no effort at all to make for six to eight people but a huge effort to make it for 60 to 80 people, so when it came off the El Piano menu all the cooks were delighted.

• Using one orange per person peel the orange with a knife. The easiest way to do this is:

• Cut off the top or the bottom - now it won't rock on the cutting board

• Put the open end on the board

• Take a sharp knife and cut the peel from top to bottom taking all the pith with it • Work your way around the orange

• Now cut into the orange over the serving plate so the juice is saved, just like a Terry's chocolate orange - slicing out the segments and letting them fall onto the plate - they will have no 'outside walls' now, just the juicy inner fruit

• add chopped dates, olives and chopped parsley to taste There is something miraculous about the fusion of the salt in the olives, the sweetness of the dates and the tang of the citrus.


TABULEH

The heart of the this traditional Middle Easter salad is couscous - polished kibbled wheat which also appears in the traditional tagine dishes of North Africa. As El Piano uses no gluten-containing ingredients we have adopted millet grain to use in our version.

• Use a volume measure to prepare the millet. Boil two measures of water and add one measure of millet. A used 500g margarine tub of millet will provide you with tabuleh for eight.

• Don't salt the water - it retards the cooking process

• Cook the millet until it is soft and the hard little yellow seeds have opened and become fluffy and paler in colour. Add more water if you are concerned there is not enough, it can always be discarded if too much

• Drain the millet and rinse repeatedly in cold water, washing the starch away, cooling it and also ensuring it does not stick together

• Leave it in a colander, ideally weighted with a plate so that the water drains away

• Add chopped tomatoes, chopped cucumber, chopped parsley, chopped mint and salt to taste. Some people also add olive oil. It depends on how fresh you want the taste to be.

The beauty of working with millet, especially for salad work, is not only is it naturally free from gluten, but unlike rice it is not potentially lethal so is an ideal substitute for rice in summer barbecue salads.

Cereus bacillus, an odourless killer bacteria, grows in rice when left at ambient temperatures and is highly toxic. Do take care this summer when using rice in any dishes that are likely to be left unrefrigerated.

EL PIANO is a wholly plant based and gluten free restaurant in Grape Lane, York. Cookbooks, information about cook classes and free recipes can be found on www.el-piano.com or on www.el-piano-cookschool.com