My Favorite American Chopped Salad

Serves 6

• 1 red bell pepper, halved
• 1 fresh red chilli, halved
• 1 red onion, peeled
• 5 or 6 ripe tomatoes
• 1/2 a cucumber
• 7 oz. feta cheese
• 2 Romaine lettuces, or 4 little Boston or butter lettuces
• 1 radicchio
• 2 or 2 handfuls of mixed fresh herbs (parsley, basil, chives, mint)
• 2 teaspoons English mustard
• 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 8 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Remove the seeds from the pepper and chilli. Wash all your other salad ingredients and drain, then get a large chopping board and either a mezzaluna (a double-handed rounded knife) or a chef’s knife, and get ready to chop!  It is important to chop the onion and chilli finely and to dice the tomatoes, pepper, cucumber and feta into 1/2 inch pieces, as this will help to bind with the dressing when you come back to mix it in. With the lettuce, radicchio and herbs, just make sure you chop them all into 1/2 inch strips.

Make a well in the center of the ingredients on your board.  Add the mustard and stir it in with a teaspoon while you add the vinegar and oil. Keep tasting to balance the flavors, and remember some vinegars can be harsher than others – just add a little more or less to your taste. Season well, taste, then add a tiny bit more seasoning before bringing all the salad into the center of the board. Mix it up and serve.  Great with steak, fish or burgers.

TIPS:

• We used 2 chef’s knives and put down a large cutting board and went for it chopping everything up!
• You can use a white chilli if you can’t find a red chilli.
• This recipe is time consuming because of all of the chopping and can get messy so using a chopping board that is easy to pour the chopped lettuce into the bowl is helpful.  It took me an hour to chop all of the lettuce until Zach took over and went crazy chopping with two knives!

sumber dari: blameitonthefood.com