I made this salad recently for a work lunch and enjoyed it so much that I have made it (or variations of it) several times since. It is so so easy to do and looks so pretty especially when topped with edible flowers which make it even more colourful.
You will need
- Rocket
- A handful of fresh herbs, I used sweet basil, greek basil and mint.
- Samphire
- Pine nuts
- Courgettes
- Feta
- Cucumber
- Edible flowers (I used nasturtiums)
Method
- Use a vegetable peeler to peel the courgettes and cucumbers lengthways into long strips.
- Add the courgette strips and samphire to a pan with a small bit of oil (I used the oil from a jar of sundried tomatoes)
- Once the strips have softened but not changed colour remove them from the pan and add the pine nuts to the pan- most of the oil will have gone but that’s fine, the pan doesn’t need to be oily. Fry them for a couple of minutes tossing them continually until they have changed colour.
- Roughly mix the rocket and fresh herbs together so they are quite evenly mixed.
- Then just pile everything in, starting with the rocket and herbs and cucumber strips
- Then add the courgette strips twisting them as they put in- this serves no purpose but looks nice!
- Scatter the samphire over the top
- Crumble the feta roughly between your fingers as you add that to the top of the salad.
- Sprinkle the pine nuts and pomegranate over the top
- Finally, place a selection of edible flowers on the top
- Enjoy!
I don’t use any extra dressing on this because the samphire and courgettes have already been cooked in flavoured oil so they add a lot of taste, plus the herbs that have been mixed with the rocket ensure that there is lots of flavour. You could, however add your own dressing to it and if you did then I think a lemon dressing would go best with this so you could mix some lemon juice, a small bit of olive oil and some crushed mint. Alternatively you could make a dressing from grated ginger, lemon and tamari which also work really well together.
