Winter salads are pretty kickass

Well it’s been ages since I’ve had time to post anything, I’ve been off gallivanting down in the South West rather a lot and dashing about working on lots of little projects. Christmas was a time of hedonistic indulgence, I’m still in Christmas mode to be honest, my tree is still up which means by Festive Rules it’s still fine to just eat cheese for breakfast.

I’m always finding chicory in the Reduced Section at the shops, people seem to be a bit nervous about using this bitter leaf, this works in my favour as it means they are always in cheap supply.

I like to use a crumbly cheese, creamy with a bit of tang, a good Wensleydale works really well, don’t go for the cheap stuff though as they have very little flavour. Feta works well as does a fresh ewe’s curd.

Ingredients:

• leaves from half head of chicory, separated.
• 1 tsp butter
• juice from 1 clementine plus zest
• handful hazelnuts
• crumbled Wenseydale cheese (feta is also lovely)
• few young dandelion and rocket leaves
• fennel fronds
• freshly ground black pepper
• tiny sprinkle of smoked salt

Method:

1. Preheat a non stick frying pan over a high heat, place individual chicory leaves over bottom of pan making sure they don’t overlap. Char then turn over and cook the other side.
2. Add the butter and orange juice and swirl pan to coat, it will go sticky very quickly. Put leaves on a plate then add the hazelnuts to the hot pan and cook whilst swirling the pan so they heat and release flavours but don’t catch as they will taste bitter.
3. Remove from heat, crumble cheese over leaves, add toasted hazelnuts, young leaves and finely grated clementine zest then season.