Broccoli, blood orange & blue cheese salad

  • Prep: 10m
  • Cook: 10m
  • Serves: 2

Don't throw away the broccoli stalks! They're tasty too. Cut the florets with a bit of stalk still attached—just make sure the stalk is pencil-thin so it cooks evenly. You can do the same with purple sprouting broccoli. If you can't find blood oranges, regular oranges work fine. Enjoy the full flavor of broccoli, including the stalks!

Method

  1. Put a large pan of well-salted water on to boil.
  2. Place the leeks into the boiling water and simmer for 3-4 minutes, until just tender. Remove with a slotted spoon and leave to one side to cool.
  3. Fill a large bowl with cold water. Boil the broccoli for 3 minutes, until tender. Drain and plunge straight into the bowl of cold water to cool. Remove and keep to one side.
  4. Zest the oranges. Remove the skin from the oranges with a sharp knife. Over a bowl, remove the segments from their membrane, catching any juice in a bowl as you work and squeezing the juice from what remains.
  5. Make a dressing by whisking 2 tablespoons of the orange juice with the mustard. Slowly whisk in 3 tablespoons of olive oil, until you have a thick, emulsified dressing. Alternatively, put everything into a lidded jar and shake like crazy to bring it together. Season to taste.
  6. Gently mix the salad leaves, celery, leeks, broccoli and orange segments with enough dressing to coat.
  7. Serve topped with crumbled blue cheese, walnuts and a little orange zest.

Recipe: Riverford

Ingredients

All to be sourced organic where possible

  • 1 large or 2 small leeks, trimmed and sliced into 1cm discs, rinsed well from Abel&Cole
  • 300g purple sprouting broccoli or calabrese, cut into tapered florets
  • 2 blood oranges
  • 2 tsp Dijon mustard from Biona
  • organic olive oil from Biona
  • 80g mixed salad leaves
  • 2 celery sticks, thinly sliced
  • 75g blue cheese from Duchy Organic Waitrose
  • 70g walnuts, toasted and roughly chopped from Duchy Organic Waitrose
  • salt and pepper

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