It's time for salad days

7:00am Saturday 10th May 2008

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CELEBRATE the return of the UK salad season as Harry Eastwood and Sophie Michell, two fab foodies from Channel 4 show Cook Yourself Thin, give us their top tips and we suggest two delicious recipes.

By Sam Wylie-Harris

ALFRESCO dining and stress-free salads are the perfect way to say, "Hello, Summer!" Celebrate the start of the season by lifting your big salad bowl out of the cupboard and creating your own delicious recipes.

Harry Eastwood and Sophie Michell, the two fab foodies from Channel 4 show Cook Yourself Thin, have launched a competition to find The Great British Salad.

"The French have the Nicoise, the Americans have the Waldorf and the Mexicans have the Caesar," says Sophie. "It's about time we Brits celebrated our tremendous variety of fresh produce and cooking creativity and invented The Great British Salad. For too long, people all over the country have been serving up shredded iceberg, half a cucumber and a bit of tomato to their families.

"But there's simply no excuse for this boring dish when you have such a fantastic range of salad leaves and local ingredients available to you."

"The key to a great salad," says Harry, "is fresh, quality produce and not being afraid to mix and match flavours and textures. Salad bags are a convenient way to experiment due to their unusual mixes of leaf varieties, which you can't often find on the high street. I always have a bag in my fridge. They're one of the freshest products you can buy and are great for throwing together a really quick, healthy, delicious meal."

To get you in the mood for salad days, we've selected the following two recipes from the summer section of a new book, Much Depends on Dinner, A Year in the Telegraph Kitchen (Simon & Schuster, £20).

CELERY, CRAYFISH AND POTATO SALAD

(Serves 4)

Both traditionally-grown celery and crayfish have a dependence on clean water and the two go well together in this variation of Jane Grigson's salad of celery, mussels and potato. Most UK-sold crayfish are produced in Norway but British are sometimes available.

600g new potatoes

300g celery sticks

200g freshwater crayfish, cooked and shelled

4tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

Juice of 1 lemon

Leaves from 2 sprigs flatleaf parsley

black pepper

Maldon salt flakes

2 boiled eggs

Put the potatoes in a pan of water and bring to the boil. Cook until the point of a knife will slip in with just a little resistance. Remove from the heat, drain and immediately flush with cold water to prevent further cooking. Allow to cool and then cut into slices half a centimetre thick. Put in a large bowl.

Pull any touch strings from the celery stalks, and wash off any dirt. Slice them thinly, across the grain, then rinse and pat dry. Add the celery and crayfish to the bowl and toss together with the olive oil, lemon juice, parsley, some freshly ground black pepper and a pinch of Maldon salt flakes. Serve topped with half a boiled egg and decorate with a few celery leaves.

FRESH GOAT'S CHEESE AND BEETROOT SALAD WITH RED WINE VINEGAR AND WALNUT VINAIGRETTE

(Serves two)

Jose Manuel Pizarro, chef at Tapas Brindisa in London, makes a wonderful goat's cheese and young beetroot salad with Monte Enebro, a new Spanish cheese made by Rafael Baez from Madrid. Baez signed on to an artisan cheesemaking course at the age of 63 and surprisingly, in the conservative world of Spanish cheese, Monte Enebro has won much acclaim and was voted best goat's cheese in Spain in 2003. You can buy Monte Enebro from Brindisa 020 7407 1036 or www.brindisa.com

1 large whole raw beetroot, or 2 small ones

1tsp olive oil for roasting the beetroot

1 slice of goat's cheese (about 80g)

1 small red onion, very thinly sliced

1 handful of mint, chervil and basil sprigs

2tbsp walnut halves, dry-roasted in a pan

3tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

2tbsp red wine vinegar, preferably cabernet sauvignon

freshly ground black pepper and sea salt

Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas Mark 6. Wash the beetroot but do not trim off the point or stalk or it will "bleed" as it cooks. Rub with a little olive oil and cover with foil. Place in the oven for 30 minutes then remove the foil. Roast for a further 10 to 15 minutes until tender when pierced with a knife (reduce the cooking time by 10 minutes if using small beetroot). Set aside to cool.

Cut the cheese into 2 x 1cm sticks. Slice the beetroot and divide between two plates. Put the cheese, onion, herbs, walnuts, extra-virgin olive oil and vinegar in a bowl and mix gently, but well. Put equal amounts on to the plate with the beetroot, season with sea salt, grind over some black pepper and serve.

For information on how to enter The Great British Salad Search and receive a cash price of £1,000 go to www.salad-recipes.co.uk. Entries must be received by July 31, 2008

First published in 1938, the Teach Yourself series is celebrating its 70th anniversary with a commemorative edition with recipes to suit the tiniest of budgets - bearing in mind a lot of them are wartime recipes.

But it's the final chapter "An Adventure in Cookery" which could bring a smile, and show just how much times have changed over the decades.

It reads: "Successful adventure is generally fearless. An explorer must be courageous, for he does not reach his objective unless he is bold enough to attempt the unknown. Similarly, the housewife in her sphere must have this spirit of adventure in order to produce new and exciting dishes."

Here are a few examples of adventures in cooking for you to try at home - macaroni cheese, fish fingers, potato salad, onion soup, meat kedgeree and chocolate apples. Bless.

Teach Yourself To Cook, By Evelyne White and Jessie R Watson, is published by Hodder Education part of Hatchette Livre, priced £5.99. Available now.