Sunday 7 August 2011

Tricolore, Milano Salami & Flower Salad

This is such a simple lunch that there isn't a great deal to write about in terms of cooking, however it was beautiful, tasty and easy to create ethically, so I thought it was still worth posting. These items could all be packed up and taken on a picnic, I think it's nicest eaten in the sun.

Tricolore, in this context, is the famous Italian salad - rather than the French flag! It's just layers of buffalo mozzarella, basil leaves and fresh, ripe tomatoes. Dressed with olive oil, salt and pepper.

Edible flowers have always fascinated and delighted me but I've had to rely solely on being able to find unblemished flowers amongst my garden plants until recently. Now I've found a couple of suppliers who sell them, either with salad leaves or on their own. I've put links to them at the bottom of this post. I used them to garnish a mix of baby gem lettuce, rocket, nasturtium leaves and sorrel for this salad.

Milano salami, in fact any preseved meat, is delicious just as it is. I love it and have been really happy to see how many shops are now selling free range and organic versions. If you are vegetarian mixed olives would very happily take on the salami's role in this meal, as they would provide the same saltiness and fatiness.

Links (Edible Flower Suppliers)
Higgledy Garden
Abel & Cole 
Waitrose

4 comments:

  1. Ooh. Thanks for those links! I adore using edible flowers but can never find them. Himself love nasturtium in particular - oh, and I like using gold dusted dried rose petals on top of cakes.

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  2. Glad to be of service! I love them too but always waver over picking them in the garden because they're too pretty. Nasturtium leaves are one of my favourite salad ingredients as well as the flowers, I've got really into sorrel this year too - no idea why I haven't used it much before.
    Do you make the gold rose petals? If so I would love to hear how, or a link to your supplier would be super.

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  3. I must admit I've only done it a couple of times. I used the dried rose petals you can buy at Neil's Yard (although I'm always keeping an eye open for them, popped them into a jar with some gold cake dust and shook them about a bit simply to give them more glitz. I'd love to experiment more with the idea though. I think a full sized gold edged rose petal on an individual fairy cake would be an effective decoration.

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  4. Hallo again, sorry for the delay, I've been faffing about on my hols. That's a great idea with the rose petals, so great in fact that I might be forced to nick it and decorate our xmas cake with them this year. I bet they'd look fabulous on white icing...

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