“Wherefore, o’er a brick wall have I climbed into this garden, to see if I can eat grass, or pick a sallet another while, which is not amiss to cool a man’s stomach this hot weather.”
Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part II
This is a fresh, spring-evocative, all-purpose green salad primavera which I often serve with albóndigas – Spanish meatballs, but it goes well with roast chicken and slow-cooked lamb…all kinds of things in fact.
For a post on nigella seeds and ideas for other ways of using them, follow this link.
Recipe for green salad primavera
Serves 8
Ingredients for the dressing
- 5 cm/1”/a thumb’s length of ginger, peeled and grated
- juice and zest of a lemon
- 6 tbsps olive oil
- salt and pepper
Ingredients for the salad
- a bunch (about 15) of spring onions
- 6 baby Lebanese cucumbers
- 2 green peppers
- 25g/1 oz mint leaves
- 25g/1 oz fresh coriander
- 1 tsp nigella seeds
- 100g/4 oz bag of lambs lettuce
Method
- Mix together the dressing ingredients – this can be done some days before of course.
- Slice the cucumbers and throw into a salad bowl. Snip in the spring onions. Tear in the herb leaves. Core and deseed the green peppers and chop roughly. Add to the bowl. Add the lambs lettuce.
- Sprinkle over the nigella seeds. Dress and serve.