Salad with figs, pecorino, basil and honey.

According to my boyfriend, this is the most delicious thing he has eaten in the last few months. Isn’t that reason enough to make this salad? If a simple salad can please your boy more than Roast chicken with obscene amounts of garlic, Shakshuka, Momofuku pork buns or Lamb Ragout, don’t make a big effort anymore and just stick with the easy salads for this summer.

Its colours are bright and it looks so fresh and festive. Summer finally started in the Netherlands this week. It’s really sunny and hot and everyone ditched their jackets and long pants and switched to short skirts and trousers. This salad is really light, which is nice when it’s so hot and moreover, it helps you keep looking good in those short skirts.

The recipe calls for young pecorino, but I’ve used old pecorino. I was clumsy enough to write figs and ripe pecorino instead of ripe figs and young pecorino on my grocery list. I thought the old cheese paired pretty well with the rest of the ingredients, but if anyone has experience with using the young version, please let me know!

The recipe also calls for a humongous amount of figs, but they were really expensive on the farmers market, so I bought 5 figs and adjusted all the amounts to make a salad for 2.

I’ll give you the original recipe below.

Recipe from Ottolenghi: the Cookbook

2 tbsp good-quality honey
3 tbsp olive oil
600 g ripe green or black figs
300 g young pecorino or a similar cheese
80 g rocket, preferably wild
10 g basil leaves
coarse sea salt and black pepper

Whisk together the honey and olive oil and season with salt and pepper to taste. Cut the figs into quarters. Tear your hands to tear the cheese into large chunks.

Arrange the rocket, basil, figs and pecorino in layers on individual serving plates or a large platter. Drizzle over the honey dressing as you go along, and finish with some freshly ground pepper.

Update: Some of you noticed that the lettuce in the picture isn’t rocket. Personally I don’t really like rocket, it’s too peppery for my taste. I’ve used mâche, which is also called field salad and lamb’s lettuce (veldsla in Dutch). I prefer the milder taste of this lettuce.

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Categories: Fruit, Vegetables

Tagged: Basil, Cheese, Dressing, Herb, Lettuce, Salad