All winter, we know that more colorful fruits and
vegetables are on the way—the glowing greens of spring will be followed quickly
by a red-hot riot of tomatoes and berries come summer. I don’t mean to take away
from those special times we have with sunnier ingredients, but here’s a salad
for the barren times—a red salad to rival any you’d see in July.
You could argue that any salad with beets becomes
a red salad, but this one from chef Fergus Henderson is deliberate and quite
clever about it. You’ll stir together snippets of raw beet, purple cabbage, and
red onion (to mellow the bite of the red onion, see tip) with balsamic
vinegar, olive oil, and salty capers. What wasn’t already red is instantly
stained. Then you plate a heap of it next to some crème fraîche (or strained
yogurt) and chervil (or curly parsley if you—like me—don’t know where the hell
to find chervil).
It’s earthy, tangy, and sweet, like a borscht that
makes you want to tear into your next course rather than go curl up in a warm
place. The genius of this recipe is only enhanced by Henderson’s fanciful
writing style—it’s inexact, but a salad doesn’t really need rigor.
Serves 6
DRESSING
Healthy splashes of extra-virgin
olive oil
A little gesture of balsamic
vinegar
A small handful of extra-fine
capers
Sea salt and freshly ground black
pepper
2 raw beets, peeled and
finely grated
¼ red cabbage, with its core cut
out, very finely sliced
1 very small red onion, peeled,
cut in half from top to bottom and finely sliced
6 healthy dollops of crème
fraîche
2 healthy bunches of chervil (or
curly parsley), stems discarded
1 Mix everything together for the dressing. Toss all
your raw red vegetables in the dressing, taste and adjust seasoning, then on six
plates place a bushel of this red mixture. Next to this, nustle your blob of
crème fraîche as if the two ingredients were good friends, not on top of each
other as if they were lovers. Finally a clump of the chervil rested next to the
other ingredients in the friendly fashion. A very striking salad ready for the
eater to mess up
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