Every meal always has to have a side salad, that is just the way of the world.

Whenever we eat English food, I make sure that there is a green salad on the side, but this becomes tricky when you eat Indian food.

I mean you can’t exactly eat a greek salad with chicken curry, it just doesn’t go together.

The Indian version of salads are raitas and I have a massive cookbook that just caters for raitas. Before I started cooking, all I thought raita was, was just plain cucumber and yoghurt raita, how mistaken was I. There are so many, that I am not even sure I would even get to try out half of them in this lifetime.

I came across a very unusual raita, an Onion and coriander one. The name itself made my mouth water.

I loved it, the crunch of the onion, but of course my mum didn’t try it. She can’t stand looking at onions, she can eat onions in a curry as long as they are chopped up really really finely, but for an onion to be the main part of the dish, she would rather starve.

With this dish I learnt a trick about when to put the salt in, because if you add the salt in before the time, it will cause the yoghurt to draw water. See who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?

Ingredients:

• 1 x onion, finely chopped.
• ½ x cup plain yoghurt.
• A handful of chopped coriander.
• 1 x tsp jeera powder.
• Pinch of salt.

Method:

• Combine all the ingredients , except the salt in a bowl.
• Allow the mixture to chill for a couple of minutes.
• Season with salt just before serving, otherwise the raita will draw water.