Salad of Spring Mesclun, Blossoms, and Wild Greens, with Lovage-Allium Dressing

Ingredients

Salad:

• Green and red leaf lettuce
• Spring mesclun mix (any variety of young greens will do: mustards, arugula, kale, amaranth, perilla, raddichio, etc).
• Fresh lovage leaves
• Fresh oregano leaves
• Fresh sage leaves
• Fresh thyme leaves
• Fresh marjoram leaves
• Young dandelion leaves
• Young fireweed and/or river beauty (epilobium species) shoots
• Snips yarrow
• Edible flowers, as available (nasturtiums, fireweed, begonia petals, borage flowers, violas, pansies, etc. Please be certain that a particular species is edible before ingesting!)
• Snipped chives

Dressing:

• 3/4 cup light olive oil (fresh flaxseed oil is a nice, nutty substitute)
• A dash lemon oil, if available (can be omitted)
• A few dashes good quality apple cider vinegar
• 3/4 cup lighter variety balsamic vinegar
• 3/4 cup water
• A dash umeboshi plum vinegar
• 1 tablespoon minced shallots
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped chives
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped lovage leaves
• Dash ground celery seed
• Dash dry mustard or 1/4 teaspoon of whole grain fresh mustard
• Dash red pepper
• Dash ground fenugreek
• Pinch nigella seeds (can be skipped if unavailable)
• Small pinch nutmeg
• Small pinch turmeric
• A very tiny hint cinnamon

Directions

Toss greens, herbs, and blossoms together with plenty of snipped chives and lovage leaves. (Tear larger leaves to bite size pieces. A kitchen scissors works well to snip lovage and herbs down to size).

Combine dry and liquid dressing ingredients, to taste, in a glass cruet and shake thoroughly before sprinkling over salad greens.

This recipe was provided by professional chefs and has been scaled down from a bulk recipe provided by a restaurant. The FN chefs have not tested this recipe, in the proportions indicated, and therefore, we cannot make any representation as to the results.