“Essential, I find, when cooking grains to serve in a salad like this one, is to cook them with a good amount of aromatics, so when dressed, the finished salad has layer upon layer of flavour,” says food writer and chef Claire Thomson.
“Making a good salad is a discreet art – it’s quite a challenge to make an ambient dish that can sustain as much as provide interesting texture and taste throughout. As ever, olive oil is a crucial flavouring. Use a good one when dressing finished dishes, certain salads especially. Grapes, although in the shops year-round, come into season at the tail end of summer and on through to the autumn. Make the most of them being at a more affordable price.”
Cider-cooked spelt with ricotta, grapes and lamb’s lettuce
Equipment
- Saucepan
- Salad bowl
Ingredients
- 180 g spelt or farro
- 150 ml apple cider
- 2 bay leaves scrunched a little
- 100 ml good olive oil
- Juice of ½ lemon
- 100 g lamb's lettuce, rocket or watercress
- 1 small bunch of mint leaves roughly chopped
- 150 g red grapes halved
- 200 g ricotta cheese
- 50 g walnuts chopped
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method
- Pour 400ml of water into a medium saucepan. Add the spelt or farro, cider, and bay leaves, season with salt and bring to a simmer over a moderate heat. Cook until the grains are tender and all the liquid has evaporated – about 30 minutes should do. If all the liquid evaporates before the grains are tender, add a little more water. Remove from the heat, let cool and discard the bay leaves.
- In a salad bowl, whisk together the olive oil, lemon juice and a good seasoning of salt. Add the spelt or farro and mix well.
- To serve, add the lamb’s lettuce (or other leaves), mint and grapes, seasoning the mixture well with salt and pepper. Finish with the ricotta and the nuts.
Nutrition
Home Cookery Year by Claire Thomson, photography by Sam Folan, is published by Quadrille, priced £30.
