CURD CHEESE, CUCUMBER, FLAT BEAN, ANISEED AND SESAME SALAD
Preparation 25 minutes Cooking about 5 minutes Serves 4
Other than a quick cucumber pickle and a dressing, this salad is made to order, highlighting the way fresh produce at its best marks the start of a bountiful summer. Here, we make use of cucumber and flat beans, both of which ripen splendidly early in our glasshouses. If you are growing them outdoors, these will be available in late spring to early summer. The aniseed dressing works harmoniously with the juicy cucumber and delightfully sweet flat beans.
100g flat beans or runner beans, chopped 3 young cucumbers 1 tsp aniseed (or fennel seeds) 100ml cider vinegar 100g caster sugar 8 tbsp ewe’s curd (or goat’s curd or a fresh young cheese) 50g cheese rind, the older and drier the better, finely grated (the rind of unwaxed ewe’s milk cheese is ideal) fine sea salt 12 borage flowers and a few watercress leaves, to garnish 1 tsp sesame seeds, toasted
FOR THE WATERCRESS DRESSING
70ml buttermilk (if not available, stir 1 tsp vinegar into 65ml milk and leave for 5 minutes) 35g mayonnaise bunch of watercress stalks mustard powder
1 Blanch the beans in boiling salted water for 2 minutes until just tender. Drain and leave in iced water.
2 Cut one cucumber into 5mm dice and sprinkle liberally with salt. Leave to drain in a sieve for 20-30 minutes to give the finished pickle a crunch.
3 Heat the aniseed in a dry pan until it spits and crackles. Take off the heat, add the vinegar carefully, then stir in the sugar until dissolved. Leave to cool.
4 Rinse the salt from the cubed cucumber. Place the cubes in a bowl and cover with the warm vinegar mixture. Leave to cool. This will keep in the fridge for 5 days.
5 Put all the dressing ingredients in a blender, keeping back a few of the watercress stalks, and pulse until the stalks are very finely chopped. The mixture should be no thicker than single cream. Taste and add more of the stalks if you want to increase the pepperiness. Season with salt and set aside.
6 Trim the ends and 2 long sides from the other 2 cucumbers and peel into strips with a Y-shaped vegetable peeler or a mandolin. Lay these on each serving plate, curling the strips over, and dress with fine sea salt.
7 Spoon scoops of ewe’s curd and roll them in the grated cheese rind. Place among the strips of cucumber. Add a few cubes of pickled cucumber and a teaspoon of the aniseed marinade to each plate. Scatter over the beans, then spoon over the watercress dressing. Finish with borage flowers, a few small watercress leaves and the toasted sesame seeds.