Charred lettuce & pickled samphire salad
This is a great summer salad with lots of different flavours and textures!
Serves 4
Ingredients
For the Pickling brine
500ml Water
300ml Cider vinegar
230g Caster or Demerara sugar
10g Maldon Sea Salt
Aromatics (whatever you’ve got in the cupboard!)
(we used: fennel seeds, peppercorns, cumin seeds and coriander seeds)
Salad
500g Courgettes
2 Baby Gem Lettuces
300g Large pitted green olives (the best quality you can find)
1 Large lemon
300g Samphire
100g Parmesan Cheese
Extra virgin olive oil
Start with the brine.
Put all the ingredients for the pickling brine into a pan and bring to the boil, stir until all the sugar is dissolved then take off the heat.
Allow the brine liquor to cool to room temp, and then pour over the samphire.
You can store this in jars in the fridge for weeks, but it will be ready to use within a few hours. The longer you leave it the stronger in flavour it will become.
Slice the courgettes on a slight angle about 1cm thick, toss in olive oil and salt and pepper.
Place your griddle on a high heat and wait until very very hot. Griddle courgettes both sides making, sure you don’t move them around too much. When the courgettes have a lovely colour and are nearly cooked through remove from the heat and place to one side.
Next, take your baby gem lettuce and remove the larger outer leaves. Cut the gem in half and brush with olive oil, salt, and pepper.
Brush down the griddle and wipe off any access oil. Allow the griddle get smoking hot and the place the lettuce flat side down.
When the edges have charred and blackened to a good colour, remove form the heat and set aside.
Place your olives in a bowl and finely grate over the zest of the lemon, and squeeze half the juice over them, mix to coat well.
You’re now ready to start building your salad! Start with the lettuce, then the courgettes, add in the olives and finish with the drained pickled samphire.
Squeeze the other half of the lemon over the salad, sprinkle with Malden sea salt, and finely grated parmesan cheese. Finish with a drizzle of oil.
Enjoy!