““Stop it,” my mother would yell, looking over as I earnestly flailed at a head of iceberg. “You are killing that lettuce.” Lesson one: Don’t stack together as many leaves as you can and then tear them like a muscle man showing off with a phone book.”

Kim Severson, Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved My Life

This is good winter green salad – just a bit different from the norm, which goes well with a roast bird. Iceberg lettuce is usually pretty tasteless, but in this case it doesn’t matter because the herbs and spring onion provide the flavour while the lettuce provides crunch. Even dressed this salad keeps quite well for a few hours.

This salad takes no time at all. By the time you’ve finished listening to the music from Titanic (at the bottom of this post) you’ll have it finished and ready to serve.

Recipe for winter salad of iceberg, parsley and spring onions

Serves 6 (or four, plus save some, undressed, and it will do for two the following day kept in the fridge under clingfilm)

Ingredients

• 1 iceberg lettuce – you may not use all this – the proportions should be about two-thirds iceberg to one-third herbs
• 1 lime – juice and zest
• 100g bunch spring onions
• 100g bunch of flat leaved parsley (or all coriander, or a mix of parsley and coriander)
• 8 tbsp olive oil – a lovely peppery one would be good
• smoked salt and lots of Indonesian long pepper

Method

1. Shred the lettuce quite finely.
2. Finely slice the spring onions – you can use at least an inch of the green part – up until it thickens and gets tough.
3. Roughly chop the bunch of parsley – you can do this keeping it in its bunch (wash it first and shake dry) and include that part of the stem in among the leaves.
4. add the lettuce, herbs and spring onion to a wooden salad bowl.
5. Make the dressing with the rest of the ingredients.
6. Dress and serve, sprinkling the zest over the top.

Music to cook to

It really has to be from the film, Titanic.