Artful Salad

A salad with ingredients arranged like little treasures

I ordered a salad somewhat like this at a small, out-of-the-way restaurant in New York City. As I have recreated it, the recipe has morphed. It’s interesting because the only greens are the fresh mint leaves. Use a mandolin to make the matchsticks of radish. The variety of textures, shapes, and colors make this a treat to eat. The ingredients are like interesting little treasures.

Salad Components

• 1 European cucumber

• 1 bunch of radishes

• nicoise olives (buy the tiny ones from Italy that come in a jar)

• handful of fresh mint leaves

• 1 red onion

• 1 lemon

• 1 large ripe tomato

• handful of tiny red and yellow tomatoes

• 6 ounces ricotta salata cheese

Dressing

• 1/4 cup of good olive oil

• juice of 1 lemon

• salt and pepper

Instructions

Peel the cucumber lengthwise, leaving a few long thin stripes of green peel around the outside. Remove seeds. Then cut crosswise to create 1/2 inch thick round slices.

Cut the radish into fine matchsticks with a mandolin. Watch your fingers!

Use a zester to cut long thin lemon peel curls. Reserve the rest of the lemon for the dressing.

Cut the red onion into thin red crescent shapes.

Cut the large tomato into small wedges.

Slice off one slab of ricotta salata for each serving.

Presentation is everything! On a white salad plate, arrange the ingredients artfully. Build each serving around a single cucumber slice with the slab of ricotta on top of it. Present a bunch of the radish matchsticks together (not sprinkled around). Then creatively place on each plate several whole mint leaves, several olives, several slices of red onion, a wedge of whole tomato, and several tiny whole tomatoes. Then sprinkle each salad with beautiful curls of thin lemon zest. Drizzle with a little dressing