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Greenest of green salads

Sophie Grigson from Market Kitchen
Sophie Grigson celebrates the best of British spring-summer greens with a salad of dandelion leaves, marjoram, sorrel, broad beans and more

Greenest of green salads

Method

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1. Fill a large bowl with cold water and into it immerse gently the lettuce, wild garlic, dandelion, mint, marjoram and sorrel. Swish the leaves around to clean. Any dirt should fall to the bottom of the bowl and the leaves will float on top. Remove the leaves from the water with your hands and place them in a colander - be sure not to pour the dirty water into the colander. Discard the dirt-water, rinse the bowl, refill with water and repeat the process until the leaves are clean. Set aside to drain and dry with a tea towel.

2. For the tarragon cream dressing: whisk all the ingredients together lightly in a small bowl, adding a little more oil if the dressing seems too thick. Taste and add salt and freshly ground black pepper, if necessary.

3. For the pomegranate dressing: whisk together the pomegranate molasses and olive oil in a small bowl. Again, taste and add salt and freshly ground black pepper if needed.

4. Put the cleaned leaves in a salad bowl. The lettuce first, then the sorrel leaves which you should rip up. Top with the dandelion leaves, torn in half, then the wild garlic leaves, ripped into little pieces. Finally add the mint and marjoram.

6. Scatter over the peas, broad beans, spring onion and mangetout (or sugar snaps) and then add the sliced fennel.

7. Just before serving, dress the salad: you can either separate it into two different bowls, with both salads dressed differently, or your guests can simply choose the dressing they would like to use at the table.

Cook’s note: you can buy many different varieties of dandelion leaves in farmers’ markets, but you can also pick them from your garden if you have dandelion flowers growing. They can be used raw in salads or steamed, boiled or sautéed.

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Serves: 4

Prep: 25 min
Cook: 10 min, if you need to cook the broad beans

Ingredients

Ingredients

3 large handfuls young Lettuce
6 leaves Wild garlic
6 dandelion leaves
8-10 sprigs Mint, leaves only
3-4 sprigs marjoram, leaves only
4 leaves Sorrel
handful shelled Peas
1 small handful Broad beans
2 stalks finely chopped spring onion
1 small handful mangetout sugar snaps, sliced
1/4 bulb thinly sliced Fennel