How to be a tosser: pickled blackberry, baby leaf, radicchio, radish salad

Pickled blackberry, radicchio, baby leaf, radish, oregano flower salad

Blackberries have come early, so I decided to pickle them lightly and add them to a salad. I spent the morning in my garden, picking any produce I could use for Saturday night's supper club. Serves 2 to 4
150g (2 cups) blackberries 100ml(1/2 cup) of fruit vinegar 1 tbsp of sea salt 3 tbsps of sugar A bunch of heritage radishes, sliced thinly 1 Radicchio lettuce 150g (2 cups) baby leaves A handful of Herb flowers, I used purple oregano flowers
Dressing: 75ml olive oil 35ml pickling liquid Malden sea salt De-stem the blackberries, wash them. Put the fruit vinegar (I used pineapple vinegar from a Chinese shop) in a small pan on a low heat and add the salt and sugar. Stir until the sugar is melted. Remove from the heat and let it cool. Once cool add the blackberries to the pickling mixture. Let them steep for at least an hour.
Prepare the salad leaves. I edged the bowl with the beetroot coloured radicchio and tore a few leaves up to add to the baby leaves. Slice up the radishes thinly. This is best done with a mandoline. Go on, treat yourself. They will make your food look more cheffy.
Whip up your dressing, you can use other oils, I'm rather keen on smoked oil at the mo. You can use lemon juice or vinegar for your dressing but I use a little of the pickling liquid.
Put the leaves into a big bowl and, using your hands, toss the lettuce in the dressing. Yes, become a tosser. It's amazing how many salads aren't properly tossed, and are consequently improperly dressed. One of the reasons for this is that people try to squash their salads into very small bowls. When making a salad, say to yourself, Jaws style: 'I'm gonna need a bigger bowl'. Then you can transfer the salad into smaller bowls. If you are trying to serve 20 people sat down a long table then you need to divide it up and arrange small bowls down the table because, deep breath, people don't pass stuff along. Especially men. They don't. It drives me insane. It makes the whole sharing-plates supper club hopey-changey thing... simply not work. Necessitating a series of small bowls.

Put the dressed leaves into the smaller bowl and scatter the radishes, blackberries and purple oregano flowers.

Posted by Hodie J