Buttermilk Dressed Rose Salad Bowl

I think you all must know by now how very much I love salad.  I eat it all the year through. When we were first married my husband was not convinced that salad was a very good thing . . .  he called it rabbit food.  

He has come to actually like them through the years however.  As he says, I never make a boring salad!  That is a high compliment coming from him! He is a man of very few words.

Actually he pretty much eats whatever I put in front of him and if he doesn't like it . . .  he won't say much of anything at all about it, or  . . .  if pressed . . .  he will simply say, "It was not one of my favourites."  How is that for being a gentleman.

This salad here today is a recipe I adapted to what I had on hand from the Supper cookbook by the late Marion Cunningham.

She adapted from a salad she had eaten which was created by her friend Myrtle Allen of the Ballymaloe Inn and Cooking School in Country Cork, Ireland.  Those Allens are great cooks!

It has long been on my bucket list to go to the Ballymalloe Inn.  I have all of Rachel Allen's cookery books and I have one by her MIL Darina Allen, called The Forgotten Skills of Cooking.  Good cooking runs in the family.

When I saw the recipe for this salad, it intrigued me.  A salad composed of crisp lettuce leaves interspersed with fresh and colourful vegetables and topped with a buttermilk dressing. It sounded delicious and as pretty as a picture. 

We eat with our eyes as much as we do our stomachs and tastebuds, in fact it is what we see that first appeals to our appetites' . . . 

Something might taste really delicious, but if it is visually disgusting looking and highly unappealing to the eye, it takes a really brave person to get past all of that and dig in.  We truly do eat with our eyes first.

There are only two of us and so I adapted this to smaller bowls for just us . . .  you could do the same thing for four lucky individuals, or you could do as the original recipe and compose it in a large shallow salad bowl. 

Its all up to you.  The Radish rose in the centre is my addition. I thought it would add a pretty and colorful touch, and  . . . it did!

 

Hang onto your hats!  You are going to literally love this!

 

Buttermilk Dressed Rose Salad Bowl

Yield: 4

Author: Marie Rayner

Prep time: 24 H & 20 MTotal time: 24 H & 20 M

This is a very pretty salad. You will need to begin the night before with preparing the lettuce. You can either prepare this in a large shallow salad bowl, or in four individual wide pasta bowls.

Ingredients

For the dressing:

• 120 ml buttermilk (1/2 cup)
• 120g mayonnaise (1/2 cup)
• 2 tsp grated garlic
• 1/2 tsp salt
• freshly ground black pepper to taste

For the Salad:

• 1 head of round lettuce or iceberg lettuce
• 4 cooked beetroot, pickled if desired
• 1 bunch watercress
• 2 ripe tomatoes
• 1/2 English cucumber
• 1 bunch spring onions
• 4 hard boiled eggs
• 4 radishes, made into roses (see note below)

Instructions

1. Prepare the lettuce the night before. Core the lettuce and submerge, cored end down, into a bowl of ice cold water. Remove and shake any excess water away. Wrap in several layers of paper kitchen towelling and place in the refrigerator over night.
2. Make the dressing by putting all of the ingredients into a jar and shaking them together to blend well. Chill in the refrigerator until you need it.
3. When you are ready to make the salad, carefully separate the salad leaves. Remove any woody stems from the watercress and discard. Cut the tomatoes into wedges. Peel the hard boil eggs and cut into wedges. Slice the beetroot into rounds. Chop the spring onions.
4. Arrange larger salad leaves like a rose in the salad bowl (s). Place some of the smaller leaves in the centre. Tuck the sprigs of water cress, tomato wedges, cucumber slices, egg wedges and beetroot slices in amongst the petals (lettuce leaves). Place the radish roses in the centre and drizzle with some of the dressing. Pass the remainder at the table.

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Created using The Recipes Generator 

To make radish roses:

Wash and clean your radishes.  Dry well.  Cut off the tops and root ends so that both are flat.  Taking a sharp knife begin at the top end of the radish and make several slashes, overlapping them slightly almost all the way to the bottom, but leaving the bottom intack.  Place in some lightly salted cold water for about fifteen minutes until they open up.  Drain and pat dry.  Use immediately.

To see a video on how to do this click here.

If you are out to impress your loved ones with a salad that is as visually appealing as it is delicious, then this is the salad for you!

 

This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at mariealicejoan at aol dot com.  

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