This recipe began its life as a garnish to steak. When I first wrote it up, I had the following in mind:
“When it comes to the good old meat and 2 x veg, I am quite partial to something hot and vegetable-related to accompany the meat and potatoes. However, where steak is concerned, I think a simple little side salad, bursting with flavour and offers additional texture also has its place on the plate.”This evening, I thought why not pad it out a bit and extend it into a full-on salad. As a slight deviation from the original, I added walnut halves but think it could really be enhanced with cubes of Feta cheese or crumbled goats cheese (sadly I had neither at hand when I thought of it). I am also thinking that smoked mackerel fillet could work well too. Watch this space. It’ll invariable happen.
Watercress and pomegranate salad
Prep time
Total time
Author: Richard Bewley
Recipe type: Salad
Cuisine: European
Serves: 2
Ingredients
- 6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tbsp white wine vinegar
- 1 tbsp wholegrain Dijon mustard
- 1 tbsp liquid honey
- 1 medium red onion, peeled and thinly sliced into rings
- 1 x 75g bag of watercress, washed
- 1 x medium pomegranate, seeds separated and pith removed
- walnut halves (if having as a main salad)
Instructions
- In a clean and sterile screw-top jar, combine the oil, vinegar, mustard, honey, garlic, salt and pepper and close the lid tight. Give the ingredients a really good and thorough shake.
- Remove the seeds from the pomegranate. Apart from delegating the task to someone with a lot more patience than me, there is no quick and easy way I have found to remove those delicious little buggers (the seeds) from the skin and pith. Scrub that, I have just been searching online and found this. The water method is genius. First, roll the fruit to loosen the seeds. next, score with a sharp knife from top to bottom to quarter the fruit. Then, split open the pomegranate under water extracting seeds with our hands - seeds will sink to the bottom, pith to the top. All that is left to do is remove the pith and discard, then drain the seeds.
- Peel and finely slice the red onion into rings.
- Assemble the salad by laying out a bed of watercress, then a few onion rings, sprinkle a good handful of pomegranate seeds then (having given the jar another good shake), drizzle the dressing over (you do not need much).
- Lay of walnut halves on top (if using), or whatever else you think will work well.
Notes
This simple little salad works a treat, and feel free to make a batch of the mustard and honey dressing- it keeps for a good few days in the fridge for another innings or two.
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