This simple and unpretentious salad herald's spring in our home and it is my submission for Weekend Herb Blogging #98, the fantastically successful food blogging event hosted by Kalyn's Kitchen.
We use whatever fresh salad greens we have in the garden with lots of arugula as the star of the salad. The arugula's pungent flavour adds a distinctive energy to any salad, a quality that has endeared arugula to legions of salad aficionados.
Arugula's peppery, woodsy, and earthy flavours explode in your mouth and according to Michael Murray this may be the reason for arugula's nickname "salad rocket", a corruption of the French "roquette", which derives from the Old Italian rochetta, a diminutive form of ruca, meaning "caterpillar", most likely a Roman reference to the plant's somewhat hairy stems.
The fun thing about making this salad is that there are no exact measurements. We just fill a salad bowl and ensure that arugula is the star.
For colour, and extra protein, we add any cheese we have in the refrigerator and for table decoration on this occasion we used fragrant sweet pea flowers from the garden.
Mixed salad leaves and arugula
Chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley and marjoram
3 Spring onions
8 Baby tomatoes
Cheese, cubed.
Classic Vinaigrette
Wash and dry the salad leaves and toss in a salad bowl with the herbs
Slice spring onions and cut baby tomatoes into halves. Cube the cheese.
Add all these to salad bowl and mix together. Toss with the vinaigrette just before serving.
Sources:
Bouquet Garni Herbs
The Condensed Encyclopedia of Healing Foods by Michael Murray and Joseph Pizzorno, ISBN 0743474031
More Arugula Salad Recipes
Simple Arugula Salad from A Veggie Venture
Salade d'Arugula, Nasturce (Rocket, Nasturtium and Blackberry Salad) from Ms. Glaze
Roasted Pepper and Arugula Salad from Gourmet A Go Go
Arugula and Peach Salad with Creamy Chive Vinaigrette from Epicurious
Sounds like a wonderful salad. I can't tell you how much I love arugula. It's one of the greens I buy all the tim and am always looking for new ways to use it!
Posted by: kalyn | August 28, 2007 at 04:55 PM
Sounds so delicious Di-Di. I long for some fresh Spring greens to whip up a salad right at this moment!!!I am enjoying looking over your blog. Glad you entered the roundup!!!
Posted by: Valli | September 03, 2007 at 06:41 PM
You can't beat arugula. I love it too, I always find it funny when people categorize it as a herb rather then a green.. because I think it should be used like you have used it - in large quantities.
Posted by: Katerina | September 04, 2007 at 12:38 AM