Tandoori Mushroom Salad with Spinach, Almonds & Fried Egg - Salad Days # 3

I've been addicted to tandoori roasted mushrooms ever since I tried them one night at the Indian Cafe.  Fortunately, they are quick and easy to make at home, especially if you always keep a jar of tandoori paste in the fridge as I do.  As you know, I'm a great believer in making as much as I can from scratch, and there is very little I buy at all in the way of processed foods.  That said, I'm not super woman, and I've long since discovered that a few sachets or jars of a variety of curry pastes in the pantry can be just the thing to transform a few humble vegetables into something fabulous when you want a quick and easy mid-week meal.

So tandoori mushrooms make a regular appearance around here for a quick and easy vegetable side.  I simply mix together equal quantities of yoghurt and tandoori paste (usually about 1/4 cup of each) to make a marinade, toss the mushrooms in the marinade and leave them to develop the flavour for at least an hour.  Finally the mushrooms are removed from the marinade and roasted in a hot oven until tender and slightly charred.

Often as I've made these mushrooms though, I'd never thought to turn them into a salad until I flicked on the TV one night just in time to see Anjum Anand serving up a tandoori mushroom salad.  Unfortunately, I was too late to get the recipe, I only saw what she put on the plate, so this is my version of how I think this dish might go.

I love the spicy, yet slightly lemony, zing of the tandoori flavour, which develops a kind of smokiness when roasted, the earthiness of the mushrooms and spinach, the velvety softness of the spinach leaves against the crunch of the almonds, and finally the oozy, runny egg yolk which combines with the mushroom juices and olive oil to make a rich, glorious dressing.

This salad is great to serve as a meal on its own, and is hearty enough for a cool, winter's evening.

Tandoori Mushroom Salad with Spinach, Almonds & Fried Egg Recipe
Inspired by a dish by Anjum Anand
Click here for a printed copy of this recipe

For each person allow:
4x large mushrooms
generous handful or two of baby spinach leaves, roughly torn
generous handful of roasted, unsalted almonds, roughly chopped
1x egg, fried

To marinate the mushrooms (this will be enough for 6-8 mushrooms, depending on size):
1/3 cup tandoori paste
1/3 cup natural yoghurt

To dress the salad:
juice of 1/2 lemon
extra virgin olive oil
flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 220 degrees C (425 degrees F).

Mix together the tandoori paste and yoghurt in a medium bowl.  Add mushrooms to the bowl, and toss to make sure they are all well coated with the marinade.  Set aside for the flavour to infuse for at least an hour.  Place mushrooms in a single layer in an ovenproof dish, and roast in the preheated oven until the mushrooms are tender and slightly blackened around the edges.

Remove mushrooms from the oven and arrange on a serving platter.   Arrange spinach leaves amongst the mushrooms, and sprinkle almonds over the top.  Drizzle over lemon juice and olive oil.  Nestle fried egg on top, and season liberally with flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper.

Serve immediately.  Dig your fork into that runny egg yolk and enjoy!

This is salad number 3 in my Salad Days, 28 days of salad project.   What's that you ask?  Well,  I've said it here a dozen times or more ... I love salads.  A big bowl, substantial salad is hands down my favourite meal any time of the year.  Such is my love of salad, that I'm challenging myself to come up with a different salad every day for the month of February - that's 28 days of salads - and I plan to share as many of them as I can with you.  I'll also be doing some flashbacks to some of my favourite salads I've shared in the past.

What's more, I'm giving you the opportunity to share some of your favourite salads with me too.  Have a favourite salad you'd like to share?  Simply link up your salad recipe using the linky tool at the bottom of this post.  The linky will be open all month, and you can join in any day or every day, and link as many recipes as you like.  Feel free to grab the Salad Days badge from the sidebar to include in your post if you'd like to.  There's really no rules around linking up, other than please, use your manners and link your post back to this one.  Linking old posts is fine too, just please edit them to include the back link.  Thanks for sharing your favourite salad with us.