Who says salad has to be oh so boring?? Perk up you week night with this luscious salad. Super easy and hugely satisfying! SS’s Wednesday night temptations sent me to the kitchen to whip up something more acceptable than standard fare. I am absolutely in love with Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty. Its one of those fantastic books meant for the vegetarian hearty meals. It has been divided by ingredient and classification, such as ‘Root’, ‘Brassicas’, ‘Green Things’ (lol!). I came across this book while browsing the Food section on The Guardian where Yotam Ottolenghi has been doing a section aptly entitles ‘The New Vegetarian‘. And new it is! So here is my crack at a recipe adapted from the book, which was accompanied with Yoghurt Flatbreads with Mushroom (recipe coming soon!) and simple Spaghetti with tomatoes and basil.
Preheat the oven to 190*c, and in the mean time pull out a fat red and yellow pepper. But it on a foil lined baking tray/roasting tin. Lightly cover it with a tablespoon of olive oil and a bit of coarse sea salt. Pop into oven for about a half hour. Keep checking as you don’t want the peppers to burn, they should basically take on some colour and go quite soft. Once done, pull out of oven and out into a container and cover it with cling film and leave to cool at room temperature while the rest of the salad is assembled.
Prepare the marinade by mixing in 2 tablespoons of good quality extra virgin olive oil, 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, one small clove of garlic, sliced thinly, 2 sprigs of rosemary, sugar, water, and season to taste. Leave to sit for an hour or you can prepare this dressing even a day in advance and leave to sit.
Mix in the salad leaves: rocket/watercress and purple lettuce. Throw in a few torn leaves of basil, parsley and a teaspoon of capers. I threw in some gorgeous fresh cherry tomatoes I had lying around. Make sure theyre all perfectly cold. Throw over the pecorino. Tear the peppers into a bit larger than bite sized pieces and mix with the dressing and dig in! I added a teaspoon of truffle oil on top just to add some depth to the flavours. I would sincerely recommend eating it with a nice piece of lightly toasted bread; I used one from Le Pain Quotidien. Heaven!
Ingredients (2-3 People):
1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon water
½ teaspoon muscavado sugar
2 sprigs rosemary/thyme
10g flat leaf parsley
1 garlic clove
Basil leaves
50g watercress/rocket
30g lettuce
50g mature pecorino
1 teaspoon capers
Salt and pepper
