Pear, Swede & Tahini Salad

Image from ‘How stuff works’ via the brilliant ‘Affairs of Living’ blog

A quick and easy salad using the humble swede and giving it quite a special dress.

Now I call a swede, a turnip, turns out I’m confused (and wrong).  Some people call it rutabaga (which is the best name by a mile) or Swedish turnip, apparently it goes by many names.  In the North East of England, a swede was a turnip.  At least in the 80’s it was!

Swede is one of my favourite roasted vegetables, so sweet. I always remember it being mashed with potato for Sunday dinner and this is still my favourite mash.

This is a very different recipe from that of my childhood mash up days, but I have changed quite a bit in the last 25 years!

This salad is crunchy and the addition of pumpkin seeds means extra crunch.  This crunch says to me that the food is fresh and alive. I just felt like giving the humble swede a little light for a while.  It’s so often overlooked.

ELEPHANT GARLIC

Now I understand Elephant garlic flowers are hard to come by.  I did not know they existed.  Hooton’s (our local farm shop) have a selection for the time being and it is a fascinating thing.  The stems (or trunks) have a hot, intensely garlic flavour.  Like wild garlic, but elephant-like.  (They may actually be called Elephant Ear Garlic.)

We sliced all of the veg/pear in a food processor, something I don’t normally use, I was surprised how easy it was.

The Bits

1 medium swede (peeled)

2 ripe pears (cored)

2 celery sticks (chopped)

Handful mangetout (hand chopped into chunks)

1 handful of elephant garlic flowers and stems (chopped – our ingredient of the moment) or wild garlic

1 handful raisins

1 handful pumpkin seeds

1 handful sprouted mung beans

Black pepper

Dressing

Juice and zest of 1 lemon

2 tbs light tahini

1 tbs light molasses

Pinch nutmeg

Pinch sea salt

Splash of water (to thin)

Do It

Put the swede, pear and celery into the food processor, roughly chop up your mangetout and garlic flowers.  Arrange in your finest salad bowl, stir in pumpkin seeds, raisins and sprouts.

For the dressing add all bits to a deep bowl and blend together with a hand blender.  The molasses will take a while to get involved, you may need blend for a while.  If the sauce is too thick, water down a little.

Serve

When you’re ready to serve, pour over the dressing and sprinkle a few more sprouts and seeds.  Remember that with salads, height is good. A stacked up salad looks very cool indeed.

We Love It!

I love combining fruit and veg in salads and this salad pays homage to the humble swede.  It is a delicious veg raw and I am surprised that people don’t use it more often.

Foodie Fact

Swede is full of vitamin C and dietary fibre.and dietary fibre.  One cup of swede gives you 50% of your vitamin C requirements.

Because we like to share at the Beach House, here is ‘Youth Lagoon – 17’. We listen to this when making salads: