Winter and salads shouldn’t be such ace buddies but they get along like a warm cosy house on fire. The fresh winter veg is crisp and refreshing with a nice winter earthiness that is kicked up a notch with bright citrus flavours from jewel-like ruby pomegranate seeds and a squeeze of clementine.

Yesterday morning was spent at a very cold and wet Melton Mowbray cattle market with the very lovely Rupal Rajani from BBC Radio Leicester. Rupal is vegetarian so was obviously delighted (not delighted one little bit – sorry Rupal) when I took her around the game auction. As we walked into the Fur & Feather shed we spotted a man with a huge fluffy grey rabbit sat on a bag of feed. The rabbit was beyond adorable, we both fell in love with it. Just as Rupal was getting her phone out to take a quick pic the man grabbed it, flipped it upside down by the neck, stuffed it in his coat and disappeared out into the rain. As we moved further into the shed people were busy stuffing shot birds from the game auction into carrier bags and holdalls, yeah this wasn’t the nicest place for a vegetarian (again…sorry Rupal).

I’m hoping I made up for all of this by making her a lovely winter salad, just to show that I can cook without the addition of dead animals really.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 red cabbage, shredded (I use a speed peeler for this)
• 1/2 red onion, very finely sliced
• 1 large jerusalem artichoke, pared into wafer thin strips using a speed peeler or box grater if you don’t have one.
• juice of 1 lemon
• juice of 1 clementine
• 1 apple finely sliced into matchsticks
• 1 pear finely sliced into matchsticks
• handful pumpkin seeds
• 1 teaspoon blue poppy seeds
• chopped fresh parsley ( or mint/coriander/fennel fronds)
• seeds from 1 pomegranate
• drizzle of raspberry vinegar
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Method:

Just combine everything in a big bowl and leave for a minimum of 30 minutes (I leave mine overnight).