Bitterly Delicious, Two-Minute Salad

January 5th, 2010 Posted in Cooking ideas

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Pickings are somewhat slim these days at the local farmers markets, so I was doubly pleased to find one of the most beautiful displays of winter greens I’ve ever seen at the stand of Jesse Kuhn’s Marin Roots farm. He probably had ten kinds of bitter lettuces and chicories, all surreally gorgeous and deliciously bitter.

“Deliciously bitter” may sound like a contradiction, but it’s not (it also sounds better in Japanese: “nigakute oishii” is high praise there). The trick to enjoying these beautiful, healthful salad greens (“salad purples” is more like it) is to introduce a tiny amount of sweetness in the dressing to offset the bitterness. So my two-minute prep of this salad went something like this:

  1. Tear up enough leaves for your salad (Jesse washes his lettuces meticulously, so I often don’t even bother with rinsing and spinning)
  2. Drizzle on your best fruity green unfiltered olive oil, along with a drizzle of something sweet. My favorite sweetener for this use is jaggery syrup (watch for a video on how to make this soon in this space), but you could also use agave, ginger syrup, simple syrup, or maple syrup). A brief squeeze of Meyer lemon or other citrus for acidity.
  3. Toss on pomegranate arils, a few marcona almonds, and flowers, and dust with s&p (yuzu salt or tangerine salt are especially nice).
  4. Declare victory, and get ready for an entirely different — and thoroughly pleasant — salad experience.

You could tart this up a million and one ways — with more fruit, smoked fish, other veggies — but sometimes the simplest salad is the best, provided your ingredients are top-notch.

Does anyone else here like bitter lettuces?

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  1. 5 Responses to “Bitterly Delicious, Two-Minute Salad”

  2. By Ed Ward on Jan 5, 2010

    Love it! Winter brings salad mixtures to our market, too, and I've become fond of one sold as "mélange Japonaise," although I don't recognize a single plant in it. I mix it half-and-half with the regular mesclun-with-arugula mix and it's great.

  3. By Alice on Jan 6, 2010

    I certainly do love bitter lettuces. That salad looks fantastic, I too love pomegranate in salads for some sweet and acidic crunchiness..unfortunaytely pomegranate season is over, around here.
    Ciao Eric, I wish you a happy new year!

  4. By Kitchen M on Jan 6, 2010

    Beautiful! Are these mustard flowers? I really love the color and texture of this salad. I too enjoy bitter lettuces and spicy lettuces.

  5. By @breakawaycook on Jan 6, 2010

    Gotta envy Ed's access to great produce there in France.

    Thanks Alice! Happy new year to you, too.

    And Em, domo! I'm not even sure if they're mustard. They do look like the tiny flowers on the rapeseed plant; I would say it's definitely a brassica … does anyone know for sure? Jesse, are you reading this?

  6. By Divina on Jan 8, 2010

    What a great and interesting salad. I love winter greens but they're not available where I came from.

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