La Cocotte Verte

Endive makes a perfect salad to accompany a festive and rich holiday meal. The chopped leaves are light, crunchy, and refreshingly bitter, sparked with a tangy sherry-pistachio vinaigrette and topped with sweet, crunchy pistachios. Compared to other nut oils, pistachio oil has a particularly strong flavor. Its rich, slightly sweet taste complements the bitterness of the endives and elevates the salad to “special occasion” status — or even “is there any more salad?” status. Bon appetit!

Light, cool and crunchy, fennel is a perfect complement to rich autumn dishes. Grapefruit and mustard add piquancy to the mellow, mildly licorice flavor of the fennel. The salad will be different if prepared with a mandoline vs hand-slicing the fennel: shaved, the fennel becomes thin enough to drape in succulent ribbons over the citrus and greens; sliced, it makes a crisp counterpoint to the buttery lettuce and juicy grapefruit.

Grilling asparagus has become popular, and rightly so: the fierce heat caramelizes its natural sugars, adding sweetness and smoke to the asparagus’ fresh green flavor. A drizzle of Piment d’ Esplanette mustard vinaigrette contributes acidity with a little spicy kick. If grilling isn’t convenient, the asparagus can be pan-seared in a large skillet over high heat. This recipe works best with plump asparagus — save the delicate-pencil-thin spears for another recipe, they will overcook with high-heat methods.

Haricots verts — delicate, supermodel-thin French green beans — bear little resemblance to their sturdier American cousins. Sweeter, crisper, and more tender, they need only a few minutes cooking to bring them to perfection. Here they’re joined with woodsy wild mushrooms, sauteed shallots, and a splash of Madeira, creating a dish of balanced richness and lightness: deep savory mushroom-shallot flavors and chewiness complementing the beans’ crisp-tender crunch and delicate vegetal taste.

Sweet, earthy golden beets; crisp, peppery watercress, and tangy, salty cheese combine in a lively salad. Perfect as a starter or a light lunch!

This salad is crisp, juicy, and fresh-flavored, a perfect antidote to the Winter blahs. White-green fennel in matchstick dice, punctuated with polka-dots of hot-pink radish and emerald-green scallions. Tarragon mustard echoes the licorice tones of the fennel, adding a snappy note to complement the peppery radishes. If the fennel bulb includes branches with tender, feathery little leaves, use them to garnish the salad for a final touch of flavor and texture.

When roasted at high temperature, broccoli develops nutty sweetness and delicious crispy bits here and there, while still retaining a slightly crunchy texture. Garlic and Maldon salt roasted with the broccoli deepen its flavor; a little lemon zest and juice add freshness and color, and pungent freshly-ground pepper adds the finishing touch.

Pomegranate seeds (arils) are wonderful in salads, contributing brilliant ruby color, sweet-tart taste, and bursts of juiciness. Fennel’s brilliant greenish-white color and gentle licorice flavor offset them perfectly. As finishing touches, scallions add a savory punch, and a simple pink-red cranberry balsamic vinaigrette rounds out the flavors.

Late summer tomatoes are just about perfect: deep, concentrated flavor, deftly balanced between sweet and acid. Their colorful, juicy ripeness is complemented by crisp, pale green cumbers and a tangy black olive tapenade-based vinaigrette. Such simple ingredients, adding up to something so joyously flavorful!

Crisp and juicy, this exceptionally refreshing salad combines nutty mache, bitter endive, and spicy radishes, crowned with a mustard vinaigrette. The slight licorice flavor of the tarragon mustard complements both the gentle sweetness of the mache and pleasantly bitter endive. If mache is unavailable, butter lettuce can be substituted.