All-year-round salad

Salads aren’t only a summer thing. While it makes perfect sense in summer because they are generally cooling, even in the depths of winter, a salad can be both filling and warming. Here’s how.

The key to any salad (or any meal) is using in-season produce. This is all-important because winter greens and vegetables perfectly complement the cool weather and with a little thought can warm you up. It’s all about striking the balance. When I first learned to cook, it was based on macrobiotics — mostly eating according to the season and based on what you’re doing in life. I still keep the core principles, I've just applied them to a largely raw/live food diet. We all evolve, do we not?

I’m not a big fan of quantities in recipes. I think they’re more important, for instance, in dessert recipes, but, for me, salads are something I make up as I go. Once you know what tastes right by way of adding extra flavour (sweet, salt, bitter, sour), you're away. I also feel salads only require simple dressings to make them work.

KEY INGREDIENTS

• The bulk of any salad should ideally be greens such as kale, fresh herbs (eg, dandelion, parsley, rocket, nasturtium), Asian greens (eg, bok choy), silverbeet, English spinach, lettuces, chard, many of which grow in the cooler months anyway. Red and dark green leafy vegetables are generally higher in antioxidants, and Vitamin B6.

• Activated nuts and seeds (see Soak your nuts and seeds) or fats (avocados, oils)

• Spices, eg, turmeric, cumin, coriander, parsley

• A little salt but in the form of, say, miso, tamari, umeboshi vinegar or umeboshi paste.

Not everything in a salad has to be raw. Adding some cooked food could be just the trick, especially in winter, and especially if sharing food with others for whom eating a salad in winter is normally out of the question. When sharing a salad in winter with family and/or friends, I will often add a little (about 30% of the meal) baked/steamed root vegetables such as kumera, sweet potato, Jerusalem artichoke, parsnips, swedes or pumpkin — although pumpkin, in particular butternut, can be grated and, if desired, lightly steamed. Alternatively, I might marinate finely-diced fresh tempeh in tamari and coconut oil and lightly sautée.

METHOD for one serve

Take a couple of handfuls of leafy greens, enough when finely diced to fill half a large bowl (say 20cm in diameter), discarding any overly woody stems (eg, kale stems) and add

• a handful of activated nuts/seeds or a half avocado, cubed

• a teaspoon of powdered spices — I like a mix of turmeric, coriander, cumin, fennel and ginger, which will get the digestion going. I also sometimes add a pinch of mountain pepper, an Australian native pepper.

• a little salt: teaspoon of miso or umeboshi (salted plum) paste added to a little water to make a runny paste or a splash of tamari or umeboshi vinegar or a high-quality salt such as Himalayan salt/sea salt/lake salt

• some vegetables (zucchini, purple carrots, yacon), grated or diced

• (option) Add seaweed in the form of chopped dulse or soaked wakame or kombu or torn unroasted nori

• (option) Add diced olives instead of nuts or avocado

• (option) Add any cooked root vegetables (moreso in the cooler months) or warmed tamari-marinated tempeh instead of avocado or other higher-fat nuts such as brazils, macadamias.

• (option) macadamia nut butter or tahini made into a paste with a little water instead of avocado and other nuts

• (option) In simple green salads, a squeeze of lemon or lime to taste (half a regular lemon or lime per person is plenty) with a little tamari or salt to taste.