Salade de Roscoff: Salad of Warm, Seasonal Vegetables

As I had mentioned in my previous post, I attended my second class at the Institute of Culinary Education. The class, entitled "Vive la Bretagne: Brittany's Signature Dishes" gave a soup to nuts--or in this case, fish to flan--overview of the fresh and crisp cooking of France's northwestern peninsula.

The first dish from the series was a Salade de Roscoff, or a salad of warm, seasonal vegetables in a vinaigrette. This salad features leeks, turnips, fennel, carrots, onions, and potatoes at their very best: intact, colorful, and filled with flavor and nutrients. This dish celebrates each vegetable in its natural form, preserving the shape and manipulating it minimally.

The Recipe:

12 baby carrots

12 pearl onions

6 baby fennel

2 leeks (young, if possible)

12 baby turnips

12 fingerling potatoes

3 quarts chicken stock

For the vinaigrette:

1 shallot

Chives (to taste)

1 garlic clove

2 tbsps cider vinegar

1 tbsp dijon mustard

3 tbsps extra virgin olive oil

First, you will need to clean and peel all of your vegetables. Before you reach for that peeler (I see you--STOP), put it back and get a small, sharp knife. As I mentioned above, this dish celebrates vegetables in their natural and unaltered state (with a little sauce). Since most of the vegetables we are using are small, baby vegetables, they are delicate and we must treat them as such. 

Here are instructions for peeling and preparing each vegetable in the salad:

Baby fennel: First, wash your fennel and pat dry. Then cut off the majority of the fluffy green stalk, leaving 2 or 3 springs for garnish. Halve the fennel lengthwise, and carefully remove their root bulbs. 

Baby leeks: Baby leeks are leeks, but smaller (as in they look like scallions). You will not need to rinse them, as you would with typical leeks, as they will not have much sand in them. Rather, carefully cut off the roots, and then peel off the outermost layer of skin, pulling the green leaf and removing the exterior of the leek. Cut off the dark green stems and rinse the leeks.

Baby turnips: Cut off the stems and the roots and rinse. Using the sharp edge of your knife, delicately peel the turnips so that you remove only a thin layer of skin.

Baby carrots: Cut off the stems, and peel carefully, as you peeled the turnips (with the edge of a knife).

Fingerling potatoes: Rinse the skin. Do not peel the skin off, as it is filled with nutrients. Just halve them lengthwise.







Now that you have prepared all of your vegetables, it is time to blanch them in the chicken stock. Blanching is when you place vegetables in boiling water (or, in this case, stock), remove them after a short time, and then plunge them into ice water. The ice water halts the cooking process and ensures that vegetables are colorful and retain their nutrients and flavor. Prepare an ice bath, and then blanch each vegetable.

While they are sitting in the ice bath, make your vinaigrette:

Dice the shallots and chives. In a small bowl, whisk together the oil and vinegar, and then slowly incorporate the mustard, chives, shallots, are garlic, whisking well.

To finish off, toss the warm vegetables in the vinaigrette and serve on a warmed plate.