Making salads

Ingredients

Forget the British obsession with lettuce and follow the Mediterranean way - a salad is any combination of cold ingredients with some dressing. The classic Italian tricolour salad is the colours of their flag with basil, tomato and mozzarella (dressed, of course).

Raw vegetables are the backbone of a salad but this does not have to be leaves, you could equally use peppers, cucumber, cannellini beans, olives or even red onion. For protein, you can use cooked or cured meats, cold boiled eggs or nuts. If using cheese, softer cheeses like mozzarella or feta tend to be best but even cheddar can work. You can have any type of bread with a salad, or put cold rice or pasta (add a little olive oil to cooked pasta to stop it sticking to itself) or croutons into it. Experiment but mostly leave the lettuce.

Dressings

The most simple dressing is just 2 or 3 parts extra virgin olive oil (do not use cooking olive oil for salads) to 1 part acid e.g. red wine, white wine or cider vinegar or lemon juice, mixed thoroughly.

You can add flavour with ingredients like black pepper, Dijon mustard, herbs, chilli flakes and honey.