Spring Lettuce with Chive Flowers

Spring Lettuce with Chive Flowers

Serves 6

And I think this word 'sallet' was born to do me good:

Henry VI, Part II, 4, 10

This lemony vinaigrette puree of chives with their springtime purple flowers perfectly compliments delicate pre-summer baby lettuces and herbs.

The original recipe calls for the washed salad greens to be dried "in a strainer". Many of the simple kitchen appliances we take for granted today, like salad spinners, had to be improvised in Shakespeare's day. A whisk was made with thin willow twigs tied together and icing was brushed on with a rabbit's foot or bird's feather. A bale of hay hanging from the ceiling served as a knife holder while quills were used to close the ends of stuffed fish or meats, much as we use toothpicks today.

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 tablespoons wine vinegar

3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

3 tablespoons chopped fresh chives

Salt and freshly milled black pepper

1 cucumber, peeled and very thinly sliced

1 lemon, peeled and thinly sliced

1 cup assorted herb leaves (such as parsley, hyssop, mint, sage, sorrel, or basil)

8 chive flowers

Purée the lemon juice, vinegar, oil, and chives until smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Toss the cucumbers, lemon slices, and herbs with the vinaigrette, place on a serving platter, and sprinkle with the chive flowers.

Original recipe: To make a sallet of all kinde of hearbes

Take your hearbes and picke them very fine into faire water, and pick your flowers by themselves, and wash them all cleane, and swing them in a Strainer, and when you put them into a dish, mingle them with cuwcumbers or lemmons, payred and sliced, and scrape sugar, and put in Vineger and oyle, and throw the flowers on the toppe of the sallet, of every sorte of the aforesaid thinges, garnish the dish about with the aforesaid things, and hard Egges, boyled, and laid about the dish and upon the sallet.

The Good Husewifes Jewell, 1610 edition of 1587

© Shakespeare's Kitchen: Renaissance Recipes for the Contemporary Cook by Francine Segan.