Recipes-not-recipes #32

The salad to rule all salads

I have always had a real affinity with stacking salads. I love going to places like Ottolenghi where the salad bar is filled with huge bowls of grains, platters of greens and lots of components that can make up a distinctly unsalad-like salad. A salad is not a side dish. It is not simply a pile of lettuce (unless you’re dressing it with lemon and olive oil and adorning it with fresh shavings of parmesan or a mountain of ricotta salata). Salads are the main event, deserving of luxurious, silky, decadent fillers. I like to think of it as more of a deconstructed sandwich. This one was somewhat of an accident; a gorgeously unexpected collision of various leftovers and a hankering for something healthy after days of existing on beige. Home fries, grains, greens, feta and oven roasted tomatoes. The dressing really makes it for me – using shop-bought hummus to create something rich and creamy.