The perfect quotidian salad

As you must have already realized I love to cook, it is my passion.  And not only cooking, but cooking in the French style, with meat, butter and cream. But the basis of French cuisine is not in the butter and cream but rather in flavorsome dishes maintaining a perfect harmony of the ingredients and enhancing each of the respective essence.  So keeping that it mind, one must realize that preparing a simple salad may be quite tricky if you wish to have a harmonious balance of the different tastes and flavors that go into the dish. Often when I am not in the mood to prepare an elaborate dish, I make myself a simple salad, the most basic one. Apart from being a perfect balanced diet, it also is refreshing and delightful once in a while. So here is the recipe and procedure to prepare a harmonious basic salad with sausages.

The leaves that I used were typical of French salads. Lettuce may be the most common leafy vegetable used in salads but here I used other leaves to avoid the crunch of lettuce. I wanted the only crunchy ingredient in my salad to be the sausages. The leaves I used and their French names are rocket leaves (roquette), young spinach leaves (jeune pousse d'épinard), young beetroot leaves (jeune pousse de betterave), corn salad (mâche) and mesclun (a mixture of different fresh leaves originating from Southern France). If you are interested you can find some details on French salad leaveshere (in French though).

Ingredients

Fresh leaves : 1 cup (around  50 grams)

Sausage : 6 ((I used the French pork sausages Chipolata which are similar to the Italian sausage)

Extra Virgin Olive oil : 1+1 tablespoons

Freshly ground black pepper : 1/3 teaspoon

Dried Chives : 1 teaspoon

Honey :   2 teaspoons

Salt : 1/2 teaspoon

Carrot : 1

Peas : 1/3 cup

Walnuts : 5

Procedure

Soak the leaves in tepid water for 5-7 minutes. This is what I do in order to avoid the molds that may be present in the leaves.

Shallow fry the sausages in olive oil and then chop them into bite sized pieces (you can follow the procedures forperfectly frying the sausages here in my previous post).

Discard the water from the leaves and then dress the salad. I usually add each ingredient directly to the salad without preparing the dressing separately.  Here are the ingredients in order.

Olive oil (1 tablespoon)

Black Pepper

Chives

Honey

Salt

Chop the carrots into long thin strips (julienne). Add the carrots and the peas and mix well.

Place the salad in a serving bowl. Then add the chopped sausages.

Add the walnuts.

The salad is ready. I prefer baguettes with roasted sesames to accompany my salad.

  

Printable Recipe

The perfect quotidian salad
Author: Mitanti Ghosh
Preparation Time: 5 min
Cooking time: 10 min
Servings: 2

Calories per serving: 80 kcal

The basis of French cuisine is not in the butter and cream but rather in flavorsome dishes maintaining a perfect harmony of the ingredients and enhancing each of the respective essence. This is a simple salad with such a harmonious balance of the different tastes and flavors.

Ingredients:

• Fresh leaves (rocket leaves, young spinach leaves, young beetroot leaves, corn salad and mesclun) : 1 cup (around 50 grams)
• Sausage : 6
• Extra Virgin Olive oil : 1+1 tablespoons
• Freshly ground black pepper : 1/3 teaspoon
• Dried Chives : 1 teaspoon
• Honey : 2 teaspoons
• Salt : 1/2 teaspoon
• Carrot : 1
• Peas : 1/3 cup
• Walnuts : 5

Instructions:

1. Soak the leaves in tepid water for 5-7 minutes.
2. Shallow fry the sausages in olive oil and then chop them into bite sized pieces.
3. Discard the water from the leaves and then dress the salad with olive oil, black pepper, chives, honey and salt.
4. Then add the carrots and the peas and mix well.
5. Place the salad in a serving bowl. Then add the chopped sausages and walnuts.