Recipe by UK's first Vegetable Butcher Amber Locke with Sainsbury's

A beautiful salad!

A beautiful salad!

Avocado can be used to make savoury 'truffles' which look interesting in a salad, or can be speared with a cocktail stick to serve as a canapé. Here, I've simply scooped out their flesh with a melon baller and rolled them in seeds giving an extra super-food boost to the salad. If you don't have a melon baller, just cut the avocado into large cubes and dust the cubes with the seeds rather than rolling them in the seeds.

The Grilled Citrus Dressing gives a mildly acidic balance to the richness of the avocado and will just lightly coat the delicate salad leaves and not weigh them down. Citrus fruit takes on a wonderful flavour when grilled (especially on a barbecue) or roasted in the oven. The juices become sweeter and the dressing has a delicate smoky taste. It's also great with a few gloves of crushed roasted garlic whisked into the dressing too.

Ingredients

For the salad:

  • 2 large handfuls of mixed green salad leaves
  • 2-3 large ripe avocados
  • 3-4 tbsp seeds (sesame, hemp or poppy seeds)
  • Small handful of sprouted seeds
  • Small handful of edible flowers, or decoration if desire

For the dressing:

  • 2 large oranges
  • 2 lemons
  • 120ml extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tsp mustard
  • 1 tsp maple syrup

Method

  1. To make the dressing, cut the citrus fruit into halves and place on the bars of a hot grill or barbecue, or in a hot oven until they start to brown at the edges.
  2. Remove from the heat and when cool enough to handle, squeeze the juice and flesh into a bowl.
  3. Add the other ingredients and whisk to form an emulsified dressing and season to taste.
  4. To make the salad, first gently wash the salad leaves and dry well.
  5. Place the seeds in a shallow bowl and cut the avocado in half.
  6. Remove the stones and using a melon baller, scoop out balls or cut the flesh into large dice.
  7. Coat the avocado pieces with the seeds and place in the bowl on top of the leaves.
  8. Scatter over the sprouted seeds and edible flowers (if using) and either serve right away or cover and store in the fridge. (As the avocado is coated in seeds, the flesh won't oxidise and go brown, so this is a salad that can be made ahead of time and just dressed at the last minute.)

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