Colour, crunch and zing

Let the sun shine in winter with this colourful salad palette. 19 seventiesgirl loves a salad. I took a whole lot of things out of the fridge and from the garden and made this amazing salad that would accompany any dish on a cold winters night. Add goat curd, some roasted walnuts, chicken or boiled eggs and have it for lunch. Salads are a great healthy addition to a meal, any time of the year, eating foods raw gives you their maximum nutritional impact. The key to this salad is some fine slicing that makes it easy to eat and take up the flavours of the dressing. I served this salad with grilled salmon, there were no left overs.

Note: serve the dressing in a jug on the side. If you have left over salad, store the dressing and salad separately until the next day. This prevents soggy salad syndrome!

You need

A salad bowl

screw top jar for tossing the dressing

Fan forced oven on 180oC

Mise en place: prepare all ingredients first

Ingredients

11/2 cups of finely shredded red cabbage, I did this by hand with a sharp knife or you could use a mandolin. Cut a quarter wedge of washed cabbage, hold tightly and shred.

1/4 of a fennel finely sliced, Cut tops off fennel, wash, remove tatty outside area and then cut into quarters from the top down. Remove core at the base and finely slice

1 large beetroot

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 tablespoon maple syrup

1 red pepper

1/2 pomegranate

1/4 cup fresh shelled green peas

1 handful of rocket washed

1/2 red onion diced

1 tablespoon finely diced parsley

1 tablespoon finely diced coriander

1 ruby red grapefruit peeled, all pith removed and segmented

Garnish

1 tablespoon each of pumpkin and sunflower seeds, toasted in a dry frypan for a minute or two on medium heat, until they just change colour. You will need to stay and watch this process as the seeds will quickly burn.

Dressing

1 orange, zested and juiced

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon of honey

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 cup plain yogurt ( I used sheep yogurt)

1 tablespoon of tahini ( sesame paste)

1 small clove of crushed garlic

salt and pepper to taste

Optional: 1/4 teaspoon chilli flakes

To make

Wash beetroot, cut top off, then cut in half. The beetroot I used was big, so I cut it in half, then into small wedges.

Wash red pepper. Cut in half length wise and remove seeds and white inner membrane. Cut each half into four long strips.

Place beetroot and red pepper into a heatproof dish with olive oil and maple syrup and roast until tender, about 45 minutes. Remove from the oven when done.

Hold the pomegranate over a large bowl in the sink. Hit the out side hard to dislodge the seeds. I used a meat mallet to do this.

Place all salad ingredients including cooked beetroot and pepper,  into salad bowl and toss lightly.

Sprinkle toasted seeds on top.

Place all dressing ingredients into a jar. Put the lid on and shake well to combine.

Serve salad with dressing on the side

Serves 4

Bon appetite

X 70’s girl