Round lettuce, chicory, rocket and watercress make up Delia Smith’s green salad, with the lettuce and chicory torn by hand and cucumber and spring onion scattered through. It makes enough for 8 in about 15 minutes, and the garlicky mustard vinaigrette uses both balsamic and sherry vinegar. Toss it at the last moment, then take it straight to the table.
How to Cook Book Three (2001) puts it in a summer lunch menu for 8, beside the Anya potato salad and a cold baked salmon with sauce verte, while watercress soup starts the meal and a gooseberry tart ends it. Delia sums it up as a simple bowl of leaves with some bite.
Each forkful brings the sweet heart of the round lettuce, crisp and faintly bitter chicory, peppery watercress and cool slices of cucumber.
Delia Smith’s Chunky Green Salad
Course: SaladsCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Easy8
servings15
minutes165
kcalTorn round lettuce and chicory with rocket, watercress, cucumber and spring onions, tossed twice in a balsamic and sherry vinegar dressing. It comes from page 224 of her third How to Cook book and feeds 8.
Ingredients
- For the salad:
1 round lettuce, outer leaves removed
1 head chicory, outer leaves removed
50g (2oz) rocket and watercress together, stalks removed
½ cucumber, peeled and sliced thinly
3 spring onions, finely chopped
- For the vinaigrette:
2 cloves garlic
1 rounded dessertspoon mustard powder
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
10 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
freshly milled black pepper
1 rounded dessertspoon sea salt
Directions
- Leaves: Tear the lettuce and chicory leaves by hand into a large serving bowl and add the rocket and watercress. Scatter in the cucumber and spring onions and toss well.
- Salt and garlic: For the vinaigrette, crush the salt fairly coarsely in a pestle and mortar, then add the garlic and keep crushing until it turns to a purée.
- Mustard: Add the mustard powder and work it in with circular strokes for about 20 seconds, until it’s well blended, then grind in some black pepper.
- Vinegars: Add both vinegars and work them in the same way, then pour in the oil and whisk hard with a small whisk.
- Dress: Just before serving, whisk the dressing again. Toss the leaves with half of it, then add the rest and toss again, and serve straight away.
Notes
- The Anya potato salad in the same menu uses exactly this vinaigrette, so for the full menu make two batches.
- For a big batch of dressing a blender is quicker, and Delia's own guide says it does the job, though a pestle and mortar is all you need for this amount.
- Leave the seeds in the cucumber, as Delia never bothers taking them out.
FAQs
Which lettuce is best for a green salad?
A round lettuce, the soft-looking one sometimes sold as butterhead, which has a crisp, sweet heart that takes most dressings well. Delia rates rocket highly but thinks it’s best mixed roughly half and half with crisp lettuce, and she finds watercress too strong on its own.
She gives iceberg and Little Gem a miss, because to her the first has crunch but no flavour and the second is tough and earthy.
Can I use bagged salad leaves?
You can, but pick the sturdier ones, which is my own call. Delia isn’t keen on the very delicate bagged leaves, which go soggy once washed and packed and fall apart as soon as the dressing touches them, so for her it’s lettuce every time.
How do I wash and dry the leaves?
Ideally you don’t, as Delia prefers to wipe each leaf with a piece of damp kitchen paper, since wet leaves won’t hold a dressing. If you’d rather wash them, dip the separated leaves briefly in cold water, shake them well in a salad basket and finish drying them with kitchen paper.
Tear rather than cut the leaves, because a knife tends to brown the edges.
Can I make it ahead?
Only in parts. Keep the lettuce whole, with the root cut off, in a polythene bag in the bottom of the fridge, which is how Delia stores it, and tear it just before serving, as broken leaves go limp quickly.
The vinaigrette can be made a few hours ahead, I’d say, then whisked again just before it goes on.
Why add the dressing in two halves?
So every leaf ends up coated. Tossing with half first and then the rest spreads the dressing evenly through the bowl, rather than leaving a pool at the bottom and dry leaves on top.
