Strip salad: A fresh twist on classic chopping techniques

When you read salad recipes, the ingredients may vary, but one thing they have in common is the recommendation to chop them into small cubes. This is how we typically prepare our favourite and most popular vegetable salads. However, in the case of the strip salad, it's entirely different. All the ingredients are cut into narrow strips.

When a colleague brought this salad to work, everyone was delighted with both its taste and appearance. The colleague noted that cutting into strips is not more difficult and does not take more time than the traditional cube method.

This cutting method is related to the popular "julienne" technique used by culinary experts. Julienne is a way of cutting vegetables or meat into long, thin, uniform sticks, about 5 cm long and 0.2 cm in diameter. A similar method is also known in traditional Chinese cuisine. In the case of the strip salad, the ingredients don't need to be as perfectly cut as in a professional kitchen. The key is maintaining the shape.

Ingredients:

                
• About 140 grams of yellow cheese, e.g., Gouda,
• About 140 grams of canned ham,
• About 200 grams of radishes,
• 2-3 pickled cucumbers,
• 1 tablespoon of mayonnaise,
• 1 teaspoon of mustard,
• 2 tablespoons of chopped chives,
• Salt and pepper to taste,
• Lemon juice to taste.

Method of preparation:

1. Cut the yellow cheese and canned ham into strips.
2. Trim the ends off the radishes and then cut them into strips. Prepare the cucumbers in a similar way.
3. Transfer all the ingredients into a bowl.
4. Mix the mayonnaise with mustard and season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice to taste.
5. Add the sauce to the chopped ingredients and stir everything together.
6. Sprinkle the entire salad with chives.
7. It's best to chill the strip salad before serving.