A bowl of goodness. There, there, take your medicine!
Ingredients
—1 small lettuce, red or green A dozen young and fresh broad beans, or whatever you have 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil 1 tsp red wine vinegar 1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed ¼ tsp salt, or to taste ½ ripe avocado ½ red pepper (bell pepper / capsicum), thinly sliced ½ cup small basil leaves 100g (3-4 oz) feta, mopped with paper towels
Method
—1 Break lettuce apart, wash, spin dry and gently tear into bite-sized pieces. Transfer to a plastic bag lined with paper towels and refrigerate. Pod beans and set aside.
2 In a large bowl blend extra virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic and salt. Extract flesh from avocado and add to dressing. Mash it all together.
Squish avocado and dressing together with a fork.
3 Add red pepper to bowl, toss with dressing, then add lettuce and broad beans. Gently toss together, then add basil and crumble in feta. Give another gentle toss, then serve.
Recipe Notes
This is the perfect home for those times when you have just a handful of fresh broad beans, not enough to do anything with apart from scatter them in a salad. They must be young and fresh to serve raw. Once the season gets on a bit, they can get too large and mealy. If that is what you have, blanch them for a few minutes in boiling salted water, drain, refresh with water, then pop the beans out of the overcoats, and there you will find exquisite verdant tender beans.
It’s also the perfect way to use up a browning or squishy avocado. Rather than throw it in the bin, squish the good bits with the dressing.
Thank you Julie for the excellent avocado dressing, it`s delicious!
Carolyn
Great, thanks Carolyn, glad you enjoyed it. It’s a great way to use bruised avocados. Podded, fresh broad beans, basil, feta and tomartes are also a good combo with the dressing.