Martha Stewart Living (May 2009)
Sometimes it's hard to get excited about salad.
Even if you have wonderful lettuce, as we often do from either our CSA or the farmers market, you can get into a salad rut. We do -- going for weeks at a time eating greens with a simple dressing (most often a bit of oil and balsamic, maybe some lemon juice, maybe some mustard, a touch of honey, salt and pepper).
It's delicious, but when you eat it several nights a week for several weeks, it loses its luster.
Enter this rock-star salad -- a dish that will really freshen up your salad rotation.
This Spring Green Salad capitalizes on many ingredients that are just coming into season. In addition to the salad greens, it also calls for sugar snap peas and zucchini (we just saw both at market on Sunday for the first time this season), scallions and fresh basil. We were especially excited about the basil -- we've overplanted (again) this year and just about have it coming out our ears.
One tip on the salad, which you can file in the "learning from our mistakes" category: When we made this salad, prior to our trip to the market, we weren't able to find fresh sugar snap peas, so we bought frozen. Not really thinking, we cooked them as recommended on the package, in the microwave. The resulting sugar snaps were not very snappy, just limp little peas. They still tasted good but didn't have the consistency that would be great in this salad. So we only used a small portion in the salad, rather than the 1/2 pound that is recommended.
The dressing itself is a lovely combination of oil and vinegar, spiced up by lemon juice and fresh ginger, and then sweetened with honey. Tossed with the fresh veggies and lettuce, it's salad sublimity.
Make one this week and freshen up your salad rotation.
And before we go, if you're looking for other great salad ideas, check out our Salads category. Be sure to not miss the Golden-Beet Salad, which was one of our favorite dishes to make last year. We just bought some beets this weekend and can't wait to make it again.
Spring Green Salad
Martha Stewart Living (May 2009)
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(This photo: Martha Stewart Living)
Prep: 15 minutes
Total: 20 minutes
Serves 4
Ingredients
* 1/2 pound sugar snap peas, trimmed, strings removed
* 5 ounces (6 cups) mixed salad greens
* 5 scallions, thinly sliced diagonally
* 2 small zucchini, thinly sliced into ribbons with a vegetable peeler
* 1/3 cup fresh basil, large leaves torn
* 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon rice vinegar (not seasoned)
* 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
* 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
* 1/2 teaspoon finely grated fresh ginger
* 1/2 teaspoon honey
* Coarse salt
* 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
Directions
1. Prepare an ice-water bath. Bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil. Add sugar snap peas, and cook until crisp-tender, about 2 minutes. Drain, and transfer to ice-water bath. Drain again.
2. Toss peas, greens, scallions, zucchini, and basil in a large bowl. Whisk together vinegar, oil, lemon juice, ginger, honey, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a small bowl. Drizzle dressing over salad, and sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon salt and the pepper. Toss to coat, and serve immediately.
