The appearance of the spring salad on our dinner table meant more and more sunny days, warmer weather, and soon, the summer holiday. This is a simple side salad that highlights the fresh taste of the first spring vegetables. During my childhood, we didn’t have fruits and vegetables available all year round. Each season had its own typical vegetables and, once they were gone, we had to wait for the next season to taste them again.
This Romanian spring salad is a celebration of spring in a bowl.
The Ingredients for the Romanian Spring Salad
The ingredients for this spring salad are the first vegetables that you would usually find at the beginning of spring: butterhead lettuce, radishes, spring onions, cucumbers and tomatoes. The dressing for the salad is a simple oil and red wine vinegar mix diluted with water, seasoned with salt and pepper. The beauty of this salad is that it doesn’t require precise quantities of ingredients. You can add as much as you want, to fit your taste.
How to Make Romanian Spring Salad
Firstly, wash the butterhead lettuce, opening up each leaf to remove the soil residues and the occasional bug. Pat dry every leaf with a kitchen towel, to remove all traces of water, then break them up and put them into a big bowl.
Thinly slice the radishes and cucumber and add them to the bowl. Next, chop the tomato into small wedges, and add it to the bowl as well. Finally, chop the spring onions and sprinkle them over the salad.
To make the dressing for this spring salad, mix the red wine vinegar with the same amount of water, to dilute it. Then, add a splash of oil, season with salt and pepper, and taste it to make sure it is not too acidic. If it is, add a little bit more water. If it’s too watery, add a little bit more vinegar. Finally, pour the dressing over the salad and leave it in the fridge for half an hour before serving. Don’t leave it for more than 30 minutes, as the vegetables will start to become soggy. The salad is nice fresh and crisp, cold, but not soggy.
How to Serve the Romanian Spring Salad
Serve this beautiful salad as a side dish for the main meal. I would usually just put the bowl in the middle of the table, along with two salad spoons, for everyone to serve themselves. Once the salad is finished, dip some bread in the leftover dressing. When I was a child, this was one of my favourite things to do at the end of the dinner.
Romanian Spring Salad
Ingredients
- 1 Butterhead Lettuce washed and roughly broken apart by hand
- 3-5 Radishes sliced
- 2 Spring onions chopped
- 1 cucumber sliced
- 7-8 cherry tomatoes chopped into wedges
- red wine vinegar
- olive oil
- salt
- pepper
- water
Instructions
- Mix all the vegetables together in a bowl
- Make a dressing with equal parts red wine vinegar and water
- Season the dressing with salt and pepper
- Pour the dressing over the salad and season with salt and pepper
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