Vegetable Salads

The Nigerian vegetable salad is my number one on the list of Nigerian healthy foods. I realized that most Nigerians shy away from healthy foods and chose to spend more money on process foods probably because they are often always canned and ready to be taken.
I made a decision at some point to have at least a plate of vegetable salad in place of one meal for every week. Vegetable salads will detoxify your body, improve your digestive capability, make you feel lighter and even make you think smarter.
I have noticed that vegetables, when eaten in large quantity sought of awaken my neural pathway.
I am talking about raw vegetables and also some less sugary fruits, like cucumbers.
There are days we make vegetable stew with lots of groundnut oil and other processed ingredients; this does not serve the same purpose as the vegetables must have be made less healthy by the present of this other processed ingredients
There are basically two types of salads that are popularly eaten in Nigeria, Salads happens to be one of the healthiest sets of foods that I know,
Especially the vegetable salad, I also like the fruit salad but this is by no mean in comparison with the former.
Below are the ingredients used in making Nigerian Vegetable salads, you can double of divide it depending on the number of people you are
Looking to feed, and of course, their stomach size need to be considered as well.

Ingredients For Nigerian Salads.

Medium size cabbage
4 medium size carrot,
lettuce leaves
2 cups of green beans,
half cup peas (optional),
one can baked beans,
2 big size of cucumber,
cooked eggs (optional)
salad cream (most people now chose to use BAMA mayonnaise other the popular salad cream.)
Just know that most vegetable salads are 50% cabbage, 30% carrot/green beans, 5-10% cucumber while the lettuce leave, peas, eggs and cream make up the other 10%

 Preparation.

: chop the carrot /green beans/cucumber and set aside on different bowls, I like to peel off the green back of cucumbers and also remove the center seed, you will learn how this is done by watching the video below on making salads
slice the cabbage too on a different tray (we use tray often in our home), slice the lettuce leaves, boil the eggs and remove the shell (4 to 5 eggs) To have something like what you are seeing below.

You then need to soften the cabbage, green beans carrot and peas, most of the times we boil carrot, green beans and peas together and soak the cabbage in hot water for a minute.
Here is how it is done, add the carrot, green beans and peas to boiling (small) water, and cook for 3 to 5 minutes (this is to soften them a little, this practice is elaborated in the video below) boil hot water and pour into the sliced cabbage in a bowl, allow for a minute then sieve out the water.
Also sieve the water out of the carrot/green beans and peas and set on a bowl. Now you are ready for the mixing part.
Most people choose to mix salad on a large plate/bowl or a tray (The way i like it best)
The mixing is simple: sprinkle a handful of cabbage on the tray, and then sprinkle the carrot/green beans/peas, also the lettuce leaf and keep
Repeating the process until they are all in one place, then slice the egg and drop on the top of the mixture. (the egg is mostly for decoration) The final mixing is done as people dish out the salad; you add the salad cream and baked beans. It is good for these two to be separate to avoid getting soured over a long period of time
Nigerian vegetable salad is served best with either fried rice; it is a very delicious and healthy combination
Below is a video on how I made Vegetable salad in Nigerian, you will have a physical demonstration of the whole process and also learn about all the ingredients I used and how each of them is prepared