Salads
Purple sprouting broccoli, beetroot, orange and caraway salad
Caraway works really well with beetroot, adding a deep, warming flavour to this healthy and colourful vegetarian salad. Use blood oranges and purple sprouting broccoli if they're still in season. You can buy good pre-cooked lentils, but to cook enough dried lentils for this recipe, add a couple of handfuls to a pan with three times the volume of water, a garlic clove or two, a sprig of thyme and a bay leaf. Boil for 25 minutes, or until the lentils are tender. Drain and remove the herbs and garlic.
Ingredients
- 4 medium sized beetroot (600-700g), left whole in their skins
- 2 tsp caraway seeds
- 2 oranges
- olive oil
- 200g purple sprouting broccoli
- 2-3 handfuls cooked Puy lentils
- salt and pepper
Method
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Step 1
Preheat oven to 200°C/Gas 6. Wrap each beetroot in pieces of foil. Place in a baking dish and roast until tender. This can take 30-40 minutes for small beetroot, about an hour for medium ones and longer for large ones. Test by inserting a sharp knife. Remove from the oven, leave until just cool enough to handle, then rub off the skins. Cut into wedges.
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Step 2
Zest half of one orange, then peel them and cut out the segments, removing any pith, using a sharp knife over a bowl to catch any juice. Squeeze the rest of the pulp over the bowl to release any remaining juice.
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Step 3
In a pan of boiling water, cook the purple sprouting broccoli for 3 minutes until tender. Drain, refresh in cold water, then drain again.
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Step 4
Add the caraway seeds to a large dry pan. Heat gently for a minute, until you can smell them. Add a good glug of olive oil and the orange juice and zest. Warm gently, then toss in the beetroot, orange, purple sprouting broccoli and lentils. Season well and stir to combine. Serve on a platter.