I think you all must know by now how very much I love salad. I eat it all the year through.When we were first married Todd was not convinced that salad was a very good thing . . . he called it rabbit food. He has come to actually like them through the years however. As he says, I never make a boring salad! That is a high compliment coming from him! He is a man of very few words.
Actually he pretty much eats whatever I put in front of him and if he doesn't like it . . . he won't say much of anything at all about it, or . . . if pressed . . . he will simply say, "It was not one of my favourites." How is that for being a gentleman.
This salad here today is a recipe I adapted to what I had on hand from the Supper cookbook by the late Marion Cunningham, who adapted from a salad she had eaten which was created by the late Myrtle Allen of the Ballymaloe Inn and Cooking School in Country Cork, Ireland. Those Allens are great cooks!
It has long been on my bucket list to go to the Ballymalloe Inn. I have all of Rachel Allen's cookery books and I have one by her MIL Darina Allen, called The Forgotten Skills of Cooking. Good cooking runs in the family.
When I saw the recipe for this salad, it intrigued me. A salad composed of crisp lettuce leaves interspersed with fresh and colourful vegetables and topped with a buttermilk dressing. It sounded delicious and as pretty as a picture.
We eat with our eyes as much as we do our stomaches and tastebuds, in fact it is what we see that first appeals to our appetities . . . something might taste really delicious, but if it is visually digusting looking and highly unappealing to the eye, it takes a really brave person to get past all of that and dig in. We truly do eat with our eyes first.
There are only two of us and so I adapted this to smaller bowls for just us . . . you could do the same thing for four lucky individuals, or you could do as the original recipe and compose it in a large shallow salad bowl. Its all up to you. The Radish rose in the center is my addition. I thought it would add a pretty and colourful touch, and . . . it did!
*Buttermilk Dressed Rose Salad Bowl*Serves 4Printable RecipeThis is a very pretty salad. You will need to begin the night before with preparing the lettuce. You can either prepare this in a large shallow salad bowl, or in four individual wide pasta bowls.
For the dressing:110 ml buttermilk (1/2 cup)120g mayonnaise (1/2 cup)2 tsp grated garlic1/2 tsp saltfreshly ground black pepper to taste
For the salad:1 head of round lettuce or iceberg lettuce4 cooked beetroot, pickled if desired1 bunch watercress2 ripe tomatoes1/2 English cucumber1 bunch spring onions4 hard boiled eggs4 radishes, made into roses (see note below)
Prepare the lettuce the night before. Core the lettuce and submerge, cored end down, into a bowl of ice cold water. Remove and shake any excess water away. Wrap in several layers of paper kitchen towelling and place in the refrigerator over night.
Make the dressing by putting all of the ingredients into a jar and shaking them together to blend well. Chill in the refrigerator until you need it.
When you are ready to make the salad, carefully separate the salad leaves. Remove any woody stems from the watercress and discard. Cut the tomatoes into wedges. Peel the hard boil eggs and cut into wedges. Slice the beetroot into rounds. Chop the spring onions.
Arrange larger salad leaves like a rose in the salad bowl (s). Place some of the smaller leaves in the center. Tuck the sprigs of water cress, tomato wedges, cucumber slices, egg wedges and beetroot slices in amongst the petals (lettuce leaves). Place the radish roses in the center and drizzle with some of the dressing. Pass the remainder at the table.
To make radish roses: Wash and clean your radishes. Dry well. Cut off the tops and root ends so that both are flat. Taking a sharp knife begin at the top end of the radish and make several slashes, overlapping them slightly almost all the way to the bottom, but leaving the bottom intack. Place in some lightly salted cold water for about fifteen minutes until they open up. Drain and pat dry. Use immediately.
To see a video on how to do this click here.
If you are out to impress your loved ones with a salad that is as visually appealing as it is delicious, then this is the salad for you! What a great dish to end July on! Bon Appetit!
