Radish and Roquefort Green Salad

I'm pretty excited to be sharing with you one of my favorite salads of all time. This salad is good year round. It's tangy and refreshing in the summer, but rich enough to sink your teeth into in the winter. It goes well with chicken or fish, but best of all with marinated beef or Frikadellen-style burgers off the grill.

Get the full instructions and the secret ingredient that pulls it all together, straight ahead!

I'd love to take credit for this amazing recipe, but alas, I learned it from Coco's godmother in Zurich. To make it, you'll need:

• One bunch of fresh radishes, trimmed with stems still attached
• One head of red leaf lettuce, rinsed and torn
• 6-8 white mushrooms, sliced thinly
• Roquefort, or other blue cheese, crumbled, to taste
• Mixed seeds 

And for the dressing: 

• Good quality olive oil
• Herbed vinegar, or red or white wine vinegar would probably work, too
• Salt & Pepper
• Herbes de Provence
• Dijon mustard

Start by trimming your radishes. Leave a little stem attached to hold onto it while grating. I like to use the whole bunch because I think radishes are magically wonderful tasting. But, by all means, hold back if you're not a huge fan. You can also shave or slice them. Whatever works for you!

Grate the radishes directly into your salad serving bowl. And then move on to the mushrooms.

Slice them up and throw them on top! I should mention here that J and I did the photos for this post at 5 pm the other night when it was 95 degrees outside. We had spent the day at the lake and all of us were a bit sun fatigued. Can't you just feel the heat radiating off of our next door neighbor's house into our kitchen? I remarked to our friends who live in Dubai that they'd feel right at home in Spokane this week. When they didn't respond, I realized that our temperatures probably seem a tad low to them, but the difference is that we don't have air conditioning! It's misery once it's over 90. 

Next you want to add a little crunch and texture to your salad. A little something to surprise your taste buds. If you're in the US, this Super Seed & Ancient Grain Blend from Trader Joe's is really good. We added sunflower seeds and poppyseed. But if you're in Switzerland, you definitely want to get this wonderful stuff at Coop. Delicious! There is also a bio version with bigger nuts and seeds. Go for the non-bio version. The little seeds and nuts are more pleasing and surprising in the salad.

Don't measure! Just sprinkle, sprinkle, sprinkle until it looks like enough. If you have little people in your house, they'll like this part as the seeds bouncing around sound like a gentle rain.

On a super hot day, I don't want to touch our stove or oven, so we grill outside instead! Our neighbors Chris and Stephanie taught us how to doctor up our burgers so they're spicy and interesting. Coco and Theo love them! Once you're this far into your salad prep, throw your meat on the grill.

Throw in your blue cheese crumbles and then rinse and spin your lettuce. Seriously, I tried to Photoshop these photos, but with the insane sunlight and the heat and all of the warm wood in our kitchen, this was the best I could do!

Tear up the lettuce and add it on top. Now it's time to make your dressing. Maybe go flip your burgers first? 

I always make salad dressings in an old jar. They seal up just right for shaking. Start with about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of vinegar. Less if you're not so into that vinegary taste, and more if it totally makes your mouth water and soothes your tummy like it does mine. I really do think that Kressi vinegar, which is cheap and really not anything special, is the secret ingredient that pulls this whole salad together. If you're in Switzerland, or can get it where you live, go get it! 

Then add the same amount of olive oil, or extra to drown out the vinegar if that's your preference.

Next you'll want 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper, at least 1/2 teaspoon of Herbes de Provence and a teaspoon of dijon mustard. If you can't find Herbes de Provence, plain old Thyme works just as well.

Now tightly screw the lid down on all that herbey goodness and shake, shake, shake! (Probably not right by your keyboard, but that is where the light was best at that point in our kitchen.) Immediately before serving, shake the dressing again, pour over the salad and toss to coat. Enjoy!