Seasonal Salad with Carrot and Lemon Dressing

March is always a weird time of year for me. I know it’s still pretty cool in other parts of the world, but it’s already starting to get warm in Texas. March is kind of like our hint of spring before we fall into the summer temperatures we experience nine months out of the year. I end up craving salads and lemonade well before it’s in season. Luckily for me, there is always some kind of green in season, so I thought it would be nice to have something light and crunchy. Years ago I went to a local restaurant that had a salade nicoise on the menu. While it wasn’t a traditional salade nicoise, the restaurant used local produce and the presentation was lovely. It was presented in beautifully bright strips of produce and protein on a long white plate. I thought it would be nice to set up something similar after months of drab colours outside.

We made a list of the in season produce for our area and went to the store to see what was available. We were aiming for 6-8 components, and simply used what we found. Feel free to substitute other ingredients that are available to you. The goal is to create a pretty well balanced meal in a single salad. We like to have one or two starchy vegetables such as beets, sweet potato, carrots, potato, or corn to give the salad some good carbs. The other vegetables help bulk out the salad and provide additional nutrients, but you aren’t limited to the choices we made. Use whatever you like! We used what we could find in season at our local grocer. While we chose to use quail eggs for our protein, this is really up to you. This salad is super flexible and any sort of protein would work well. The dressing is super citrusy, so keep that in mind when choosing a protein. The dressing also has some really great fats, but you could also add olives or avocado or cheese if you felt so inclined. The idea is just to get something crisp and colourful, so let out your creativity. See what we did below!

The seasonal produce available locally is my favourite way to eat produce. This salad is really flexible, so use whatever kinds of produce makes you happy.

Carrot, shallot, ginger, meyer lemon, and olive oil. You are welcome to use any oil you prefer, though we found the fruity nature of olive oil really compliments the other components.

We used smaller carrots with the tops still attached. They always tend to be a bit sweeter, and the tops are edible if you’re so inclined. Chop off the green tops, peel the carrots, and chop roughly to make them easier to blend.

I prefer to peel the skin off the ginger when I’m blending it into something. You could grate it, but since it’s all going into the blender, a quick chop is just fine.

Shallots have a sharper flavour than typical onions. They’re an ingredient that can easily overpower more delicate flavours, hence the small amount used.

I used a microplane grater to zest the lemons before juicing them. I like this type of juicer because it gives me the option to also scrape the flesh of the lemons into the juice. The only drawback is having to fish out the seeds. The juice ends up nice and thick.

I started off with 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Feel free to adjust this amount if you like a little more oil in your dressings.

Blitz everything together and give it a taste. At this point, we added a bit of salt and a bit of brown sugar to balance out the taste. The dressing is really thick and very pretty.

These are the beets, brussel sprouts, and sweet potato. I really like all three of these vegetables grilled.

Be sure to peel the sweet potato and the beets. Note: Beet juice stains really easily, hence I chose to use a plastic cutting board. Brussel sprouts are small enough that slicing them in half is enough to cook them through when grilled. Be sure to slice the sweet potato medallions fairly thinly so that they can cook through completely when grilled. The beets we found were really small, so I chose to just cut them in half. This made for very firm beets, but we both like them that way. If you want softer beets, slice them into medallions instead.

We brushed the grill pan with avocado oil because it has a really high smoke point. You can also brush the oil directly onto the vegetables. We left them for 5 or so minutes per side.

Pretty grill marks!

Quail eggs! If you’ve never had them before, they are a bit sweeter than chicken eggs. We really like them, but feel free to use any protein you like.

If your eggs are cold, place them in cold water and bring to a boil. If your eggs are at room temperature, bring your water to a boil before placing the eggs. Since they’re so small, they only need about 3 minutes in the boiling water.

Once they’re done, plunge them into an ice bath. This makes them super easy to peel.

Chop the spinach into bite sized pieces. We used mature spinach, so I sliced up the stems and added them as well.

Trim the celery and slice thinly.

I chopped the broccoli florets into small bits, and then added the stem in slices. The broccoli we found was small, and the stem was soft. If yours is older, feel free to discard the stems.

Trim the tops off the radishes if the tops are still attached and rinse well. Radishes tend to be dusty.

Cut into bite sized pieces. I really like to quarter them because they’re prettier that way.

Arrange the vegetables into long stripes in your serving dish.

This dressing is too thick to pour, so spoon it over the salad.

Garnish with some flat leaf parsley and enjoy!

Seasonal Salad with Carrot and Lemon Dressing (Serves 4)

Dressing:

• 100 grams carrot, peeled and roughly chopped

• 25 grams shallot, roughly chopped

• 5 grams fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped

• 2 Meyer lemons, juiced plus the zest

• 3 tablespoons olive oil

• sugar, to taste

• salt, to taste

Combine carrot, shallot, ginger, lemon juice and zest in a blender and blend until smooth. Add sugar and salt to taste.

Salad:

• Beets

• Sweet Potato

• Brussel Sprouts

• Quail Eggs

• Spinach

• Celery

• Broccoli

• Radish

• Carrot and Lemon Dressing

• Parsley, for garnish

Peel and slice the beets and sweet potato. Trim the brussel sprouts and cut in half. Pre-heat your grill pan over medium heat for a couple minutes and brush with oil. Lay the vegetables out in a single layer and leave for about 5 minutes before turning. Leave for an additional five minutes, or until cooked through. Remove from heat.

Hard boil the quail eggs. If the eggs are cold, place in cold water and bring to a boil. If the eggs are room temperature, boil the water before placing eggs. Boil for three minutes, turn off the heat, and let eggs sit in the hot water for three minutes. Plunge eggs into an ice bath and leave for two to three minutes. Peel eggs. Slice in half and set aside.

Chop spinach, celery, broccoli, and radish into bite size pieces and arrange each vegetable in long rows on the serving tray. Add the beets, sweet potato, and brussel sprouts in rows as well. Place quail egg halves on top.

Spoon carrot and lemon dressing across the top of the salad. Sprinkle parsley on top of the dressing and serve.