Is there anything more delicious than the first salad of the season? Tender, delicate, buttery. The dressing has to be ultra mild, with a hint of lemon and very little salt. When you have lettuce like this growing in your garden, it’s best to adapt your dressing to be simple in order to highlight the flavor and the perfection of the leaves.
Prepare the dressing before the greens are harvested, ideally just before serving and when everyone is already sitting at the table. This will keep the fragile leaves fresh and at peak nutrition. My favorite dressing starts by rubbing a wooden salad bowl with a clove of garlic and a hint of salt to season, then stirring together a few tablespoons of my best extra virgin olive oil with a squeeze of lemon juice. Sometimes I add a drizzle of honey to sweeten, or even a bit of sesame tahini to give it a creamy texture that clings to the leaves.
As if it is not enough of a miracle that something so beautiful can sprout from a mere seed, but cutting mix lettuce is cut-and-come-again crop made up of loose-leaf lettuce types, which means that it will regrow another crop after the first cut. Harvest at soil level with scissors, careful not to bring in any soil to the kitchen ( avoid washing, too, since the leaves should be dry in order to hold the dressing) and wait another two weeks.
Here is my recipe for lemon dressing , ideal for a light spring salad. Lemon has a way of bringing out out the flavor of mild spring salad greens. This lemon dressing is also used for Quinoa and Lentil Salad, one of my favorite summer recipes that I make almost every day when the cherry tomatoes and arugula are abundant.
Photo credit above: by Ali Kaukas copyright The Complete Kitchen Garden.
