Mark Clemens
I prepared Tomato vinaigrette spinach salad served with mackerel stuffed canned tomatoes. At the risk of being simplistic, when life gives you leafy greens, make a salad.
I think you guys are reasonable with your combinations to date. These ingredients had a natural affinity for each other. I'm afraid you might take that thought as an offense, so I'm hoping that I haven't "rattled the cage."
The canned tomatoes are tough to work with when stuffing and keeping whole. I really had to treat the tomatoes gently when stuffing and slicing. I tried unsuccessfully filling the tomatoes using a small spoon. A cake icing bag worked and made the process easier. The "heat" of the jalapeños in both the canned mackerel and mustard threw off the typically subtle flavors of the vinaigrette salad. I felt adding some honey to the vinaigrette helped tone down the heat. I also used balsamic in place of straight red wine vinegar for the same "softening" of the bite.
Hey! I'm Danish. I was raised on canned fish. I often have last night's grilled fish mixed with mayonnaise and capers on a piece of rye toast for breakfast.
I had to give my wife, Kaye, a couple of stuffed tomatoes as she loved the dish, and wanted more!
It pretty much worked on the initial effort, though I had to work on the vinaigrette (honey, vinegar and mustard) to give it balance. I still feel a correctly balanced vinaigrette is a "must know" ingredient that cooks need to master.
Since we haven't seen our fellow cook's efforts at this juncture, you can't help but think, "Well, they must be doing the same thing. I hope they aren't showing me up with something more exotic."
I'm willing to push the envelope, but usually, I follow my innate instinct of "simple is better." As in a green salad with red tomatoes; that makes pretty good sense to me.