This salad is so fresh and delicious. Dressed with a tasty lemon, feta and extra virgin olive oil dressing and filled with crunchy green vegetables it’s the perfect pretty addition to your Christmas table!

You can throw it together in half an hour too, making it the easiest part of any party prep. The nigella seeds add a really lovely delicate herbaciousness to the salad but if you can’t find them you could use sesame seeds to increase the nutty flavour that the almonds bring.

As i said, I think this is the perfect Chistmas day salad, well for those of us in the Southern Hemisphere when Christmas is often hot and sweaty. The greens with the white and pink radish look super festive and it tastes indulgent enough while celebrating delicious produce. That said, I had it on Sunday night with a couple of Pizzas and that was delicious too!

Make it everyday, make it once a year – you do you – just make it! I don’t cook the zucchini as that makes it water but it does get slightly pickled so that it isn’t super raw and crunchy.

Serves 6 as a side

Ingredients

1 bunch asparagus, woody ends removed

2 cups snowpeas, trimmed

1 cup broad beans

2/3 cup loosely packed flat leaf parsley leaves

1 zucchini, finely sliced into 2mm discs

1/4 tsp salt

1 Tbs lemon juice

1 tsp lemon zest

3 radish, finel sliced

1/4 cup flaked almonds, toasted

1.5 tsps nigella seeds

Dressing

1/3 cup crumbled feta

3 Tbs 1emon juice

3 Tbs  Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 .5Tbs finely chopped flat leaf parsley

1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Bring a medium pot of salted water to the boil. Add the broad beans and cook for 4 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and transfer to iced water. Bring water back to the boil. Blanch Asparagus for 1 minute. Remove and transfer to iced water. Bring water back to the boil. Blanch snow peas for 30 seconds. Remove and transfer to iced water.

Combine zucchini, lemon zest, salt and lemon juice in a small bowl and toss to coat Zucchini. You do this to ever so slightly pickle it so it’s more tender in the salad.

Cut the Asparagus into thirds.

Make the dressing by combining all ingredients in a small bowl and stirring well with a spoon or fork.

Remove the grey green shell from each broad bean revealing the bright green bean. Place these, the radish, asparagus, snow peas, parsley and zucchini in a large bowl. Add the dressing, nigella seeds and 1.2 the almonds and toss well to coat. Sprinkle remaining almonds over the top and dig in.

HH x