Vitamin Salad with Young Cabbage and Bell Pepper

Preparing the vegetables

1. A simple, healthy salad of young vegetables is a wonderful dish. It can be a dish on its own, a snack, or an excellent breakfast with a slice of fresh bread. It is also a great vegetable side dish for a well-fried chicken fillet cutlet.

2. Prepare the vegetables: if the young vegetables were not picked in the garden right before cooking, put them in cold water beforehand for at least a couple of hours.

   

3. Roast and peel the sweet pepper. Remove the seeds and stem from the sweet red pepper, rub it with a little vegetable oil and roast it in the oven (at 200 °C) or in the microwave. It is important that the thin outer skin of the pepper lifts off, so it can be removed without trouble. To be sure, put the roasted pepper in a plastic bag while it is still hot. After the pepper cools, the outer skin comes off much more easily.

   

4. Cut the cabbage and carrot and put them in a large bowl. Shred half a head of young cabbage fairly fine. With some experience, a knife does this well. But as a rule, cabbage is shredded successfully with various kitchen gadgets. In a vegetable salad the cabbage should stay as it was cut, without crushing it with your hands. Liquid in the dish is unacceptable.

   

   Peel the young carrot thoroughly and grate it on a coarse grater. Carrot is an exceptionally good source of vitamin A, and a healthy dish is simply unthinkable without this root vegetable. Young carrots are usually very juicy and almost sweet. I remember that as a child we just gnawed on them like rabbits, without waiting for carrot salad.

   

5. Add the herbs and hot pepper. Wash the fresh green dill and pat the drops of water dry. Pick the leaves off the sprigs. We only need the leaves, and the coarse stems are better thrown away. Do not chop the dill; tear the herbs by hand, fairly roughly, and add them to the dish. Remove the seeds and inner membranes from the hot pepper pod, since they give most of the heat. Cut the pepper into rings or strips and add it to the salad too. Add the chopped green onion.

   

Assembling the salad

1. Add 0.5 tsp of sugar (2 g), a pinch of salt and a little pepper to the salad. Mix the ingredients lightly and leave for 5 mins. The salt and sugar need to dissolve.

2. Cut the peeled roasted red pepper into slices or thick strips. Add the cut pepper to the dish and mix once more.

   

Dressing

1. Mix 3–4 tbsp of olive oil and 2–3 drops of balsamic vinegar in a cup. The vinegar can be replaced with lemon juice, using a little more, for example 1 tsp. Whisk the olive oil with the acid using a fork and pour the mixture over the vegetables. Toss very gently, literally just turn it over.

   

Serving

1. Serve right away. The finished dish does not need to cool or soak. The salad should be at room temperature, so the aroma and flavor of young vegetables come through in full. Put the vegetable salad in salad bowls, or on plates if it is served as a side dish. I remember as a child we ate such salads from clay bowls with wooden spoons, only with fresh white bread and village-style new potatoes — with dill, sour cream and garlic. One of the tastiest childhood memories.

   

   It is a pity, of course, that the season of young vegetables does not last all year. Still, this dish can be made not only from young vegetables. The vitamins in vegetables do not go anywhere; there may just be fewer or more of them.