The salad that went along with yesterday’s soup is a little crazy how good it is, considering how easy it is to make. Trying to recreate the nectarine soup and this salad was a fun challenge. I really had no idea how they were made, but in the end I think both recipes really get the essence of the amazing first course we had at Sutra. The salad at Sutra used ground cherries in the salad, which tasted an awful lot like tiny cherry tomatoes to me. For this reason, and the fact that I have no idea where to get ground cherries (or even really what they are) AND because we have cherry tomatoes in the garden, I used cherry tomatoes from our garden. I used kalamata olives because it’s what we had in the fridge. And we were out of pumpkin seeds, so I candied slivered almonds instead, which were divine. I streamlined the dressing and just did a simple white wine vinegar and olive oil dressing with a little thyme and bee-free honey.
The Recipe
Serves 4
4 or 5 giant handfuls of arugula
1 cup cherry tomatoes, cut in half
1/2 cup candied almonds or pumpkin seeds (see below for instructions)
1/3 cup olives (like kalamata) cut into quarters
For the Dressing:
1 1/2 Tbls white wine vinegar
1 tsp olive oil
1/4 tsp bee-free honey or agave
small pinch salt
small pinch of dried thyme
FOR THE CANDIED ALMONDS: You can do this with any kind of nuts/seeds. I used slivered almonds because it’s what we had. In a cast iron pan on the stovetop, heat to medium/lowish heat. Add 1/2 cup nuts. Sprinkle 1-2 tsps of sugar over the nuts and stir frequently. The sugar won’t stick to the nuts at first, it will just fall onto the pan. Keep stirring. After a few minutes, the sugar will suddenly liquify and begin to adhere to the nuts. At the same time, the nuts will be getting nice and brown. Make sure not to have your heat too high or the sugar will burn. When the sugar has stuck to the nuts nicely, remove the nuts from the pan and put them on a plate or in a bowl to cool. IMPORTANT: immediately use a dry paper towel or paper napkin to wipe out the excess sugar from the pan while it is still hot. If you wipe all the sugar off at this point, you will not have the nasty trouble of hardened sugar mucking up your pan.
FOR THE DRESSING: Mix all dressing ingredients in a small bowl or jar and stir to combine.
FOR THE SALAD: Put the arugula in a salad bowl. Cut the cherry tomatoes in half and the olives in quarters and add to the salad. Once the nuts have cooled, sprinkle them on top. Pour the dressing over the salad just before serving and toss.
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