Like with everything we cook and eat, the key is to begin with good ingredients. Try to get into the habit of choosing a few different lettuce heads and making up your own salad mix once a week. And don’t be afraid to mix flavours and textures. It is hard to beat freshly picked ingredients from your own garden, or purchased in a farmers’ market. Store them in an airtight plastic container or ziplock bag to ensure they stay fresh. Alternatively, consider growing some in a large pot on the patio during the summer months.

Your hands make the best salad-tossing tool. Gently pick the herbs off their stalks and roughly tear on top or snip in chives with a scissors. Crumble or tear the cheese into small pieces and scatter on top. See right for my thoughts on how to dress a salad. Serve immediately, straight to the table.

A big thank you to all of the people who have had nice comments to make about my new book.

Happy cooking,

Neven

Neven Maguire’s Home Economics For Life is out now (Gill Books).

CRISP

Cos lettuce

Romaine lettuce

Little Gem lettuce

Loose-leaf lettuce (sometimes known as crisp)

SOFT

Buttterhead lettuce

Red or green oakleaf lettuce

Lamb’s lettuce

Watercress

VEGETABLES

Tomatoes

Cucumber

Avocado

Radishes

Fennel

CRUNCH

Toasted mixed seeds

Toasted pine nuts

Croutons

Crispy bacon lardons

CHEESE

Feta

Buffalo mozzarella

Parmesan

Cashel Blue

HERBS

Fresh chives

Fresh basil

Fresh flat-leaf parsley

Fresh rocket

How to dress a salad

  • 1 A good salad should be light, bright and full of life, so make sure that your salad leaves are completely dry. Once they are in the bowl, season them with salt and pepper. It is not enough to just season the dressing. A good salad is all about creating many layers of flavour.
  • 2 The best way to dress a salad is to drizzle over just enough dressing to coat all the leaves. Adding too much will create a soggy mess, and too little will leave something to be desired. Add the dressing little by little, tasting as you go to make sure you have added the perfect amount. The best tool you can use for dressing a salad is your hands. This ensures that the salad stays light and airy and is handled with a gentle touch. Using your hands to toss also allows air to get into the layers and incorporates your ingredients in a far more distributed way.

  • 3 I find it works best to add some of the heavy ingredients for the toss, like the vegetables and crunch ingredient, then add the herbs so that their delicate flavour can shine through more than when they’re simply scattered on the top. Finish with the cheese so that your guests get to see what’s in the salad and it doesn’t all sink to the bottom.

  • 4 So there you have it; how to make the perfect salad. Grab a plate and enjoy.