mexican street salad

method

This simple little salad can be quite extraordinary, but you’ve got to season it with that Mexican spirit by being brave with the lime juice, salt, and chiles, until it’s singing in your mouth. It does a great job of waking up the other things it’s served with – a few spoonfuls of this next to a grilled chicken breast or pork chop would be an absolute
celebration.

Vegetable-wise, the onion, cilantro, and white cabbage are nonnegotiable; they form the base of this salad. But feel free to have a play with the other ingredients: Use things like fennel or asparagus. Basically whatever’s in season and available should be a nice addition.

The easiest and quickest way to make this is to use a food processor with a slicer attachment or a mandolin. If you don’t have either of those, use a speed peeler, or simply grate everything finely.

Shred your white and red cabbage into two separate piles. Put just the white cabbage into a large bowl with the radishes, carrots, and most of the cilantro. Mix everything together really well, then kick up the flavors by adding almost all the chopped chiles, the sliced red onion, and a good few lugs of extra virgin olive oil. Add most of the lime juice and a good pinch of salt, then toss together and have a taste. Just keep adjusting everything, adding more fragrance with the cilantro, heat with the last of the chiles, and acid with another squeeze of lime juice, until it’s just right for you.

When you’re happy, fold in the red cabbage right before serving so it doesn’t stain everything, and tuck in.

serves: 4-6

ingredients

• ½ a small white cabbage
• ½ a small red cabbage
• a small bunch of radishes (about
10), trimmed and thinly sliced
• 2 carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
• a large bunch of fresh cilantro,
leaves and stalks finely chopped
• 2 large jalapeño chiles (or other
green chiles), to taste, thinly sliced
• 1 red onion, peeled and thinly sliced
• extra virgin olive oil
• juice of 2–3 limes
• sea salt