salad
making
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Whether it is a simple salad as a side dish, or a salad blended with pasta, potatoes or grains to make a complete meal, the quality of the produce from your garden will transform it to heights unmatched by anything money could buy. This chapter gives a few hints and recipes for creating salads that taste, and look, superb.
Creative salads
The art of salad making has spanned centuries and continents. In Europe it reached extraordinary heights in the ‘crowned sallets’ of Elizabethan times. These were elaborate constructions. Sometimes a complete head of celery would be the centrepiece, mounted in a pot and surrounded by layer upon layer of sliced meats, eggs, shredded vegetables, nuts and fruits. Or the salad could take the form of a pastry castle with ‘towers’ and ‘ramparts’ of carrots, turnips and beetroots, and ‘courtyards’ planted with herbs and flowers.
One of the most articulate exponents of the art of salad making was the seventeenth-century writer and diarist John Evelyn. His book Acetaria: a Discourse of Sallets, which he wrote in 1699, is full of wisdom and observation, most of it as pertinent today as it was 300 years ago. (For the past forty years, it has been within arm’s reach of my desk!) John Evelyn’s garden at Says Court was organized so that a mixed green salad could be put on the table every day of the year. Here is how he summarized the ‘art’ of composing a salad:
Every Plant should come in to bear its part, without being over-power’d by some Herb of a stronger Taste, so as to endanger the native Sapor and Vertue of the rest: but fall into their places like the Notes in Music, in which there should be nothing harsh or grating, and though admitting some Discords (to distinguish and illustrate the rest), striking in the more sprightly, and sometimes gentler Notes, reconcile all Dissonances and melt them into an agreeable Composition.
Perhaps the finest examples of contemporary salad making are to be found in the Middle East, in the wonderful mezze tradition, which stretches from Morocco to Afghanistan and from Greece to the Yemen. Mezze can be anything from a simple snack to a banquet of forty to fifty dishes. They are exquisitely prepared and presented salads, served in tiny bowls. Stuffed peppers, courgettes or vine leaves might be cut in slices; crisp raw vegetables set against creamy, fragrant dips; black, purple and green olives contrasted with chopped egg, aubergines served in yogurt, tomatoes in olive oil; and dried lentil and bean salads decorated with cucumber and tomato wedges.
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Raw and simple salads
My own feeling is that a great many home-grown salad plants are at their best eaten raw with minimum treatment. Any form of cooking not only destroys the subtleties of flavour, texture and colour, but also the vitamins. Raw salads are quickly and easily prepared.
Crudités
The classic French crudités are the most basic raw salads, made from pristinely fresh vegetables, typically served in delicate mounds with a sprinkling of sea salt. The vegetables can be grated, very finely sliced, diced or cut into matchsticks – a perfect way to treat fennel, celery and Beauty Heart radish. Small vegetables, such as summer radish, spring onions and baby carrots, can be left whole. The idea is to eat them with your fingers as an hors d’oeuvre, perhaps dipping them into a vinaigrette, mayonnaise, creamy dressing or dips made from tahini, hummus, or yogurt flavoured with chopped mint or garlic, or vegetable purées such as aubergine (steamed or cooked in light oil until soft).
Blend colours and textures to enhance the effect, and serve them in attractive dishes with, for special occasions, finger bowls of rosewater and scented geranium leaves. Some – radishes and spring onions, for example – are best chilled before serving; keep them in iced water in the refrigerator. Keep any that discolour once cut in water into which lemon juice has been squeezed.
Simple salads
The simple salad is epitomised by the classic green salad of fresh, very crisp lettuce leaves or hearts, tossed in a vinaigrette dressing just before serving. Vary it by adding a few leaves of chicory, endive, purslane, dandelion, spinach, or any other appropriate salad plant. Or make a simple salad with any of these alone, or in simple combinations. Change their nature by using different vinegars and oils in the dressings, and garnishing with herbs, flowers, nuts, sprouted seeds or seedlings.
Simple salads can also be made with non-leafy plants such as tomatoes, dressed just with basil and the lightest of vinaigrettes; lightly dressed bean sprouts on a bed of endive; summer or winter purslane mixed with salad rocket. Almost any salad vegetable, can be treated ‘simply’.
Mixed salads and saladini
Mixed salads have many more ingredients and, sometimes, more complex dressings, but they must be subtly balanced and blended so that they have character – not merely nondescript diversity for diversity’s sake. Into this category of salads falls ‘saladini’, the modern incarnation of the sixteenth-, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century salads in which twenty or thirty ingredients were combined.
The term ‘saladini’ arose from our travels in Europe in the late 1970s. In the northern Italian markets we saw seedlings of lettuce, endive, chicory, salad rocket and corn salad being sold alongside baskets of wild plants. The idea was to buy a few handfuls of each and mix them into a salad at home. These small leaves were called insalatine, a diminutive of insalata, the Italian word for salad, but my untuned ears misheard it as ‘saladini’. We liked the word – it was associated in our minds with the Continental plants we began growing and using in mixed salads on our return – and we adopted it as our own to describe our mixed salads. It is now widely used.
Virtually all the plants covered in this book can be used in saladini. Like John Evelyn with his green salads, it is possible to serve a freshly picked saladini every day of the year. (See the Saladini chart). In mixing saladini we always try to balance flavours, contrast textures, and include a few ingredients for their form and colour alone. Chopped herbs and flowers add the finishing touches.
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Cooked salads
Many vegetables can be cooked, then incorporated into salad dishes when cool. Of the root vegetables, potatoes, of course, are inedible raw; others, including parsnip, salsify and scorzonera, are generally more palatable cooked. Kohl rabi and Jerusalem artichoke are among those with a markedly different, and I think improved, flavour after cooking.
Many legumes, including green and dried French and runner beans, broad beans and various pulses must be cooked, as they are toxic in varying degrees when raw. To some palates cooked dried beans taste even better when eaten cold.
Among vegetables that can be eaten raw when very young, but are generally better in salads cooked and eaten cold are asparagus, cauliflower, courgettes, calabrese and leeks.
The ideal way of cooking vegetables for salads, to preserve texture and natural crispness, is to roast them in the oven in a little oil.
Salads with hot dressings and ‘hot salads’
The best-known hot dressing is the French aux lardons: essentially hot bacon pieces and juice mixed with salad leaves, which are eaten immediately. There are permutations on the theme, but this dressing is always used for bitter, sharp and strong-flavoured leaves such as dandelion, endive, wild chicory, spinach and oriental mustards.
The Italian bagna cauda is another classic hot dressing or dip. Its key ingredients are garlic, anchovy and oil. Piedmontese in origin, it is used with popular Italian vegetables like cardoons, artichoke, celery and endive.
In China and Japan the term ‘hot salad’ describes vegetables that are stir-fried for no more than half a minute – just long enough to take the edge off their rawness. Still warm, they are tossed in a dressing and immediately brought to table. Sprouted seeds and any of the oriental greens or mustards can be treated this way. Stir-fry them in a mix of cooking and sesame oil, then use any Asian dressing.
Composé salads
The original French composé salads were mixtures of raw or cooked vegetables. In their modern form the net is cast wider, and they are mixed with, say, a staple such as brown rice, pasta, grains such as buckwheat, lentils, bulgur wheat or quinoa, or alternatively fish, meat, chicken or even cheese, or any combinations of these, dressed and garnished as necessary. Take care when making composé salads: such mixtures, it has to be said, can be dire in the wrong hands.
To prevent pasta and basmati rice from becoming lumpy, moisten with oil or butter as soon as it is cooked and before it has cooled. For preference, use long-grain brown rice, American or Spanish rice, as the grains separate nicely and absorb dressings well.
Other examples of composé salads are the various forms of Salade Niçoise, in which tuna is combined with salad vegetables, combinations of beans and peas with tagliatelle, or tomatoes provençale and pain bagna.
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Pickling
Before the advent of deep freezes and year-round availability of almost everything, pickling was one of the most important means of preserving food to enliven dull winter diets. A trawl through old gardening books reveals an extraordinary range of plants that were commonly pickled for salads – globe artichokes, beet, French beans, cucumbers, leeks, mushrooms, onions, purslane, radish seed pods, herbs such as summer savory and tarragon, the buds of broom, elder and nasturtium, and the flowers of chicory, cowslip, elder, scorzonera, salsify, clove-scented pinks and nasturtiums, as well as nasturtium seeds.
There is no longer the same necessity to make pickles, but a few salad plants are worth pickling, because they acquire such a good flavour in the process. Among them are shallots, onions, gherkins, sweet peppers, globe artichokes, small beets and nasturtium seeds. It’s fun to make a few old-fashioned pickles such as radish seed pods and glasswort.
In essence pickling implies conservation in a spiced, clear vinegar such as cider, wine, rice vinegar or distilled malt vinegar. In some cases the plants are initially sprinkled with salt or soaked in brine to dehydrate them.
‘Quick pickles’ are short term pickles. The delicious Asiatic quick pickles are eaten within hours or at most a couple of days. They are widely used for Chinese cabbage, spicy oriental greens, root vegetables and cucumbers. The vegetables are sprinkled with salt, and left, depending on the vegetable, for anything from thirty minutes to overnight. In some cases they are pressed under a weight. They are then rinsed before use.
Quick pickling is a practical mean of softening and tenderising vegetables which can have an abrasive quality raw (such as onions and cabbage) before integrating them into salads. Slice them, sprinkle with salt mixed with a little vinegar and sugar, leave for 15 minutes or longer, and pat dry in paper towelling or cloth. This method could be used for cucumbers too; just sprinkle with a little salt then dress with a little sugar and vinegar.
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Salad preparation tips and techniques
Gathering
Collect leaves and flowers early in the day of use. Remove soiled leaves, keep unwashed leaves in the fridge in a closed bag until required. (In my experience unwashed leaves keep fresh longer than they do once washed.)
Cleaning and drying
After gentle washing, swing leaves dry in a collapsible salad basket, centrifugal spinner, or simply pat them dry in muslin cloth or a tea towel.
Blanching
This is recommended for softening and tenderising sharp and bitter leaves, fibrous elements in stems, roots and stringy beans, even mangetout peas and raw spinach to make them slightly more digestible before mixing into salads. Bring a large pan of water to the boil, plunge leaves in for no more than a few seconds, roots for a minute or two. Any longer and they become cooked. Immediately plunge them into cold water, or run cold water through in a strainer. Rapid cooling retains flavour and crispness and prevents discolouration.
Stir-frying
Recommended for preparing mature oriental leaves or fibrous vegetables for use in salads: it preserves flavour and most nutrients, bestowing lovely crisp texture. Ideally use a wok (or deep frying pan). Cut vegetables into 21/2–5cm/1–2in lengths. Heat the wok until it starts to smoke, put in roughly one tablespoon of mild cooking oil per handful of greens. When the oil is sizzling hot, add the greens, starting with the thickest pieces. Toss continually for two or three minutes. They need to be tender but still crisp.
Keeping salad fresh
Keep left-over salad leaves in a fridge, lightly dried but still slightly damp, in a plastic or ‘ziplock’ bag with the air expelled. A piece of kitchen paper in the bag absorbs excess moisture. Wilted lettuce can be crisped up just before use in a bowl of ice cubes.
Salad recipes
A Wise man should gather the Herbs
An Avaricious man fling in ye salt and vinegar,
A Prodigal the Oyle.
This ancient ditty on salad making, quoted with approval by John Evelyn in 1699, is still apt in the twenty-first century. In most cases the simplest and lightest dressing is all that is needed to bring out the natural flavour of a salad. Occasionally more sophisticated treatment is called for to convert it from the mundane into something special. There are no rules. Intuition, imagination, experience and your personal preferences are the cornerstones of the art of salad dressing.
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Basic dressing ingredients
Oil and vinegar, often blended with mustard, are the ingredients in a basic dressing. Oil-based dressings keep for at least a week in an airtight container in a cool place; mayonnaise and dressings made with yogurt or cream will keep for a day or two in a refrigerator.
Oils
Olive oil ‘Extra virgin’ or ‘first cold pressing’ is the strongest, uniquely flavoured, unrefined olive oil, widely considered the supreme oil for salads. For those who find the flavour too ‘heavy’ and strong, it can be blended with lighter oils, or use just a few drops in a dressing.
Lighter, neutral oils Sunflower, rape seed, and soya oil are among lighter oils, neutral in flavour. So too are the cheaper refined olive oils, generally labelled ‘pure’ or ‘fine’.
Nut oils Walnut oil has a delightful, distinct, fairly strong flavour. It can be blended with lighter oils. Once opened it will keep in a refrigerator for 4–5 months.
Sesame oil Distinctly flavoured, and perfect in Asian vegetable dressings. Oil made from toasted sesame seed has more depth of flavour.
Vinegars
The lighter wine and cider vinegars are the most suitable for salad dressings. Sherry vinegar has just the right edge for Asian dressings. Balsamic vinegar has a sweet flavour.
Home-made vinegars Make subtly-flavoured herb vinegars by steeping sprigs of, say, tarragon, rosemary, thyme or green basil into wine vinegar in a screw top jar or bottle. Rose-coloured vinegars can be made with a handful of raspberries, sprigs of purple basil or red perilla (‘shiso’). All these vinegars are ready after a few weeks and will keep for a year.
Mustards
Mustards are a common component of salad dressings and vary considerably in strength and flavour. Of the well-known mustards, the mild-flavoured Dijon mustard and Meaux mustard are the most suitable for standard salad dressings; others, such as strong-flavoured English mustard, can be used sparingly.
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Dressings
Vary the following recipes to your whim to suit the salad.
Vinaigrettes and variations
Basic vinaigrette (French dressing) For use with green salad, any leafy or crisp raw or cooked salad, thin-leaved kales.
1 part wine vinegar or lemon juice, crushed garlic, salt and pepper, 4 parts light oil.
Mix the vinegar or lemon juice, garlic and seasoning in a bowl or jug. Add the oil slowly, stirring vigorously. A few drops of olive oil can be added to the final vinaigrette for heightened flavour.
Thickened vinaigrette For use with coarser leaves and root vegetables. Stir a little mustard into the oil until it is thickened. Add a tablespoon of yogurt or thin cream to make it richer.
Green vinaigrette For use with tomato, potato, carrot, pasta salads. To a thickened vinaigrette add chopped herbs like basil, chervil, mint or thyme and a final sprinkling of olive oil.
Sauce ravigote For use with cooked root vegetables. Add chopped onions, a few capers, chopped anchovies and gherkins to the green vinaigrette.
Ginger and sesame dressing For Chinese vegetables, bean sprouts and other sprouted seeds, kales, quinoa and roasted vegetables.
150ml sunflower or rapeseed oil, 25ml toasted sesame oil, 1tsp Dijon mustard, 25ml soya sauce, 25ml wine vinegar, large piece of fresh ginger, 1 clove garlic.
Put the Dijon mustard into a bowl, whisk in the vinegar, oils and soya sauce. Peel and chop the garlic very finely and stir in. Grate the ginger on the coarse side of a grater without peeling, then squeeze out the juice by hand into the vinaigrette. Give a final whisk before gently mixing into the salad. Fresh coriander, sweet peppers, blanched chili peppers, sesame seeds are possible additions.
Mayonnaise and variations
Basic mayonnaise For use with cooked vegetables, crudités.
2 egg yolks, 1tsp Dijon mustard,
salt and pepper, 300ml/1/2 pint light oil,
1 tablespoon lemon juice or wine vinegar.
Put the egg yolks, mustard, salt and pepper into a large bowl, and stir to a smooth paste. Add the oil slowly, drop by drop, whisking as you go, until the mixture begins to emulsify. Then whisk in the rest of the oil, stirring continuously. Sprinkle in a few drops of wine vinegar or lemon juice and whisk briskly. Taste, and add more seasoning or vinegar if necessary. Should the mixture curdle, break another egg yolk into a clean bowl with a smidgen of mustard, and slowly whisk the curdled mixture into it. Mixtures that have become too thick can be thinned with a few drops of lemon juice. Mayonnaise can be made by hand, or in a blender or food processor.
Sauce verte (Green mayonnaise) For use with cooked or raw root vegetables, tomatoes, celeriac. Add finely chopped herbs or a little puréed spinach; alternatively, pound a few sprigs of chervil, tarragon, watercress and a couple of spinach leaves in a mortar and add it to the mayonnaise.
Rémoulade For use with celery, celeriac, kohl rabi, potato, other cooked root vegetables including salsfy and scorzonera. Add garlic, chopped shallots, anchovy fillets, capers, gherkin, pitted olives, parsley and chervil to mayonnaise.
Aïoli (Garlic mayonnaise) For celery, celeriac, potato and other cooked root vegetables.
1 eggyolk, scant tsp Dijon mustard, 1–2 cloves, finely chopped garlic and 50 ml each of olive and light oil. Season with salt and pepper.
Skordalia For use with beetroot, potato, aubergine, courgette. A Greek form of aïoli substituting a well-mashed floury potato for the egg yolk in the mayonnaise to make a lighter dressing. In another version, stale white bread, moistened with water, then squeezed, is substituted for the egg. Before making the mayonnaise pound the bread and garlic together and add ground almonds.
Piquant mayonnaise For use with tomato, beetroot, cooked root vegetables, rice-based salads. Add a little grated horseradish and paprika, or a few drops of hot West Indian sauce.
Blue cheese dressing For use with red chicory and bitter leaves. Stir in blue cheese melted over a saucepan of boiling water.
Other dressings
Tahini (ground sesame seed) sauce For use with lentil and other grain-based salads, roasted vegetable salads, cooked beetroot
Juice of 1 lemon, 1 clove garlic, peeled and finely chopped, 2 tbsp light tahini, pinch of salt, a little water.
Whisk together (except water) until combined. Thin with water to a thick pouring consistency. Stir in yogurt for cooked beet salad.
Plain yogurt dressing Widespread use, especially chicory, cucumber, sorrel, dandelion, beet, spinach.
300ml/1/2 pint yogurt, 50ml olive oil, juice of one lemon, 2 crushed garlic cloves, small bunch of finely chopped mint dill or fennel, salt and pepper.
Mix the yogurt and lemon juice, then whisk in the oil, garlic, mint and seasoning until emulsified.
Basic sour cream dressing For use with chicory, sorrel, spinach, dandelion, endive, beetroot, cucumber, watercress, land cress. Mix 300ml/1/2 pint sour cream with one teaspoon each of fresh fennel or dill and chopped mint, a touch of garlic and salt. This basic dressing lends itself to various additions, for example wine vinegar or lemon juice; chopped onions; hot crispy bacon pieces; thin strips of anchovy; tuna pieces; cooked, sliced mushrooms; roast cumin or coriander seeds; thinly sliced, hot-flavoured brassica leaves; crushed black olives with grated orange zest and garlic. Alternative herbs are celery seed or chopped celery, or a purée of parsley, basil or sorrel with salt and pepper.
Bagna cauda This traditional Piedmontese dressing – literally ‘hot bath’ – is a rough-and-ready hot sauce into which vegetables are dipped. Widely used for cardoons, it is also excellent for celery, endive, sweet peppers with skins removed after charring, globe artichoke hearts, Witloof and red chicory and any bitter leaves. Alternatively leaves can be finely shredded, and the bagna cauda poured over them. (White truffles are used in the authentic Piedmontese bagna cauda.)
5 tbsp butter or 5 tbsp olive oil, 3 crushed garlic cloves, 4 anchovy fillets, mashed, 225g/1/2lb mushrooms, chopped.
Put the butter or oil into a heavy pan with the garlic and anchovies. Cook gently over moderate heat until garlic turns yellow. Add the mushrooms and simmer until just tender.
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Salads
These recipes are a handful of favourites which can be made with the plants described throughout the book and the dressings above. Precise quantities are only given when essential to the balance of the recipe. Vary ingredients and quantities to suit the salad you are making.
Raw salads
Carrot, Avocado and Wakame seaweed 4-5 peeled and grated carrots, 1 ripe peeled avocado, 10g wakame seaweed, 25g sunflower seeds, soya sauce to taste, vinaigrette dressing.
Cut the wakame into small pieces, cover with warm water and leave for 5 minutes. Put the grated carrots into a bowl, surround with avocado cut into chunks, scatter drained seaweed over the top. Heat a dry pan and gently toast the sunflower seeds, toss with a little soya sauce and scatter the seeds over the top. Dress with the vinaigrette.
Celeriac rémoulade Peel a large celeriac, cut into chunks and blanch in boiling water with vinegar or lemon juice added. Drain and shred the celeriac, dress with a rémoulade and garnish with chopped capers.
Witloof chicory with orange This delicious combination scarcely needs a dressing – just a sprinkling of light vinaigrette. Arrange the spears of Witloof chicons like flower petals on a round plate. Slice a mild, peeled Spanish onion and seedless oranges as thinly as possible and arrange in the centre with whole black olives. Garnish with chopped coriander. Easily adapted to Sugar Loaf chicory and curly-leaved endive.
Witloof chicory with piquant mayonnaise Finely slice Witloof chicons, dress with mayonnaise flavoured with horseradish, add crumbled blue cheese and walnuts. Garnish with chopped parsley, chervil or winter savory.
Dill-pickled cucumber 1 cucumber, 1 onion, 1 tbsp chopped dill, 50g caster sugar, 100ml white wine/cider vinegar, 1/2 tsp salt.
Slice the cucumber and onion very thinly. Use a mandolin if you have one. Mix the salt, sugar, dill and vinegar together. Toss everything together in a bowl and leave to marinate for an hour. Irresistible!
Dandelion Tear the fresh green leaves into small pieces and mix with equal quantities of blanched endive or Witloof chicory. Rub the salad bowl with garlic before adding the mixed leaves and toss with a vinaigrette. Garnish with olives. Suitable also for sorrel, salad rocket, young spinach and all types of chicory.
Fennel, avocado and pink grapefruit Slice a large bulb of fennel thinly; cut a couple of ripe, but not too soft, avocados into strips (acidulate with lemon to prevent discolouration). Remove the pith from two grapefruits and divide them into segments. Arrange the ingredients in circles on a shallow dish, and garnish with watercress and fennel fronds. Sprinkle with a raspberry-flavoured vinaigrette made with walnut oil. Chill before serving.
Glasswort (Marsh samphire) Freshly picked, clean young glasswort can be eaten raw. Wash thoroughly if muddy. Otherwise blanch in hot water for a minute or steam lightly, drain and arrange on a plate. Dress with a vinaigrette made with light oil and lemon juice. Serve with slices of lemon. Eat it with your fingers, slurping the leaves off the stems: they come away surprisingly easily.
Iceplant with raspberry vinegar Arrange iceplant in a dish and toss with a vinaigrette made with raspberry vinegar and walnut oil.
Kale, Avocado and Orange 150g kale, 1 large ripe avocado, 2 oranges, 1 red onion, 50g lightly toasted sunflower and pumpkin seeds, 1 tsp Dijon mustard, 2 tbsp cider or balsamic vinegar, 3 tbsp olive oil, salt.
Wash the kale and slice into ribbons, removing the tough centre stems. Juice half an orange and, setting the rest aside, mix 2tbsp of the juice with Dijon mustard and 1 tsp vinegar, and whisk in the olive oil. Season with a little salt and pour over the kale. Massage the dressing into the kale.
Thinly slice the red onion, sprinkle with a little salt and toss to separate the rings. Toss in a bowl with the remaining balsamic vinegar.
Peel the orange, remove the pith and cut into segments. Dice the avocado and keep until required in the reserved orange juice to prevent discolouration. Just before serving, mix the avocado, onion and orange segments with the kale and sprinkle the seeds on top.
Oriental greens Oriental greens and flexibility go hand in hand. Mix sharp-flavoured mustards, torn or shredded into small pieces, with milder pak choi, chrysanthemum greens and mitsuba stems, or other mild leaves like summer and winter purslane. Dress with a thick vinaigrette or ginger and sesame dressing. Chinese chive flowers are the perfect garnish.
Summer purslane and flowers Arrange young purslane leaves in a flattish bowl and sprinkle with chicory, nasturtium and bergamot flowers and a few rose petals. Add chives, marjoram, and green and purple basil, and decorate with a few sprigs of red currants. Splash with a light vinaigrette made with walnut oil.
Sprouted seeds or kale with ginger and sesame dressing Put sprouted seeds in a large salad bowl, pour on the dressing and toss the sprouts until evenly covered. Chill thoroughly before serving. Unless very young, kale leaves can be steamed or lightly stir-fried first.
Cooked salads
Green beans with lemon and parmesan 450g French beans, topped and tailed, 1 finely sliced red onion, 1 clove garlic, 75ml olive oil, 25ml sunflower oil, lemon zest, 1 tbsp white balsamic or white wine vinegar, 1 tsp Dijon mustard, a large handful of basil, grated parmesan, salt and pepper.
Boil the beans for about four minutes in salted water. Test a bean – it should squeak when you bite it, barely tender. If ready, strain and plunge into cold water. Finely chop the garlic and mix together with the Dijon mustard and vinegar. Whisk in the oils and stir in the lemon zest. Taste, and season. Drain the green beans, add a large handful of basil, sliced red onion and toss together with the vinaigrette. Sprinkle over the parmesan and season to taste.
Italian French bean salad A personal favourite as so simple and tasty. Cook green French beans until just tender, drain, season, and mix with a vinaigrette and finely chopped onion or shallots. Leave to cool. Serve piled on lettuce leaves, garnished with chopped hard-boiled egg, parmesan and chive flowers. Add chopped fresh coriander, parsley, basil, thyme, marjoram or black olives to taste.
Turkish beetroot salad with yogurt 4 medium-sized beetroots, salt and pepper, 300ml/1/2 pint yogurt, 100 mls tahini, crushed garlic clove, caraway seeds, paprika or sumac to garnish.
Preferably bake the beetroots in foil (or boil) until tender. Cool and rub off the skins carefully. Slice or dice, season with salt and pepper. Beat the yogurt with crushed garlic, a little salt and a few caraway seeds and pour over the beetroot. Garnish with paprika.
Chard with sour cream dressing Wash chard leaves and stems well, drain and cut roughly into fairly thick slices, using the white part as well as the green. Steam for a few minutes until tender. Drain well, put in a dish and season well. Mix with a sour cream dressing and garnish with a pinch of cayenne, chopped chives and dill seed. Suitable also for any of the spinaches.
Chinese artichokes Scrub the tubers (which are normally small). Cook in boiling salted water for a few minutes or fry lightly, or steam until just soft. Cool and serve with a well-flavoured vinaigrette or light creamy dressing, and garnish with chopped green herbs.
Globe artichoke Before cooking, clean them by soaking upside down in cold, salted water for an hour or so. Note that in young plants the top of the stem is also tender and delicious. Cut back the points of tight heads to make them open up and cook faster. Rub any cut surface with lemon to prevent discolouration. Steam or boil for about twenty minutes, until tender, then drain. Eat slowly, dipped into melted butter or a vinaigrette. Pull off the leafy bracts one by one, dip the base into the dressing and suck it clean. Discard the fibrous ‘choke’ and keep the succulent, exquisite fleshy base to the last.
Marinated sweet peppers
a mixture of different coloured sweet peppers, fresh coriander, cumin and paprika to taste, olive oil, 3 crushed garlic cloves, salt and pepper.
Put the peppers under the grill at mid-heat. Keep turning until the skin is black and blistered, and the insides well cooked. Remove from the grill and wrap in kitchen paper for ten minutes. The skins will then come off very easily. Cut in half, remove seeds and chop into thin strips. Add salt and pepper, a little coriander, cumin and paprika. Mix the olive oil with the garlic and pour it over the peppers. Leave them to marinate overnight. Serve with chopped parsley and lemon wedges.
Green salad aux lardons
equal quantities of red lettuce, spinach, sorrel, endive, dandelion and very young beet tops, pieces of crispy bacon, wine or cider vinegar, pumpkin seeds, croûtons.
Choose small leaves, or tear them if large, and place them in a glass bowl. To make the dressing, cube streaky bacon and cook in a pan until the fat runs; remove the crispy bits and add them to the salad. Add a little vinegar and pumpkin seeds to the fat in the pan, and cook for two minutes. Pour over the salad. Decorate with croûtons. Serve immediately. (Suitable also for any bitter leaves such as chicory.)