Our resident chef Mark Hix on why you should ditch bland supermarket salad for something red instead
A lot of salad farmers grow delicious red, Italian winter leaves at this time of year. While you are probably familiar with the round and quite common radicchio, there are lots of varieties to explore, like trevisso, tardivo, trevisiano and, of course, red chicory, which all belong to the same family. My salad and vegetable grower Joris Gunawardena down at Sutton Community Farm in south London grows all of the above in the colder months. I use them in salads, where they add a delicate bitterness you just can’t beat.
If you’re looking to liven up a warm salad, now is the perfect time to ditch those boring, generic leaves bagged up in every supermarket. They taste of nothing at all and go limp as soon as you look at them. It makes sense to use winter leaves instead; though they’re not as common in supermarkets, you’ll find them in farmer’s markets and it’s even worth making a visit to Borough Market for them. If you’re a keen gardener, they’re also a colourful and lively addition to your salad patch this time of year.
Ruby Salad
Serves 4
This is a great winter or autumn salad using a mixture of red leaves and whatever other red ingredients you have. You could use pomegranate or halved red grapes, for example.
Ingredients
- 3-4 good handfuls of red salad leaves
- 2 medium-size red beetroots, cooked, peeled and cut into wedges
- 2 blood oranges, peeled and segmented (reserve the juice for the dressing)
- 2 large red onions, baked in an oven in their skins for 45 minutes
- For the dressing
- 2 tbsp good-quality red wine vinegar
- 5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- Any juice from the blood oranges
- Salt and black pepper
For the dressing, whisk all of the ingredients together and season to taste. Remove the skins from the onions, cut them into six wedges each and pull the natural layers apart. Toss the ingredients together with the dressing and season.