Summer slaw with a herby dressing

This dressing is absolutely delicious! It’s great on a slaw, as I’ve suggested here but it would also be excellent on a potato salad or a pasta salad or as a sauce with cold chicken on salmon. The key with the dressing is to go heavy on the herbs and try to use a good mixture of flavours. Other herbs that would work here include chervil, mint or even rocket or mustard leaves. I like the dressing with a bit of spice - hence including peppery nasturtium leaves.

It’s always a bit tricky to give an accurate recipe for a slaw as vegetables vary a lot in size - I suggest just chopping until you have a large bowl full. When you add the dressing the vegetables will reduce in volume a bit, so chop a bit more than you think you need. Any crunchy vegetables that are good eaten raw will work well in this slaw, so don’t feel limited by the vegetables I’ve suggested. Other things you might include are turnip (or swede), peppers, radishes, mooli, crisp baby gem lettuce, fennel and even finely shredded chard or kale is a good addition.

Serves 6 as a side

For the dressing:
A generous handful of soft herbs – I used flat leaf parsley, dill, coriander, nasturtium leaves and a little tarragon
1 small garlic clove
6 tablespoons (about 90ml)Greek or natural yoghurt
2 tablespoons (about 30ml)mayonnaise
Salt and pepper

¼ white or red cabbage (or use a mixture of both)
1 medium-sized beetroot
½ small kohlrabi
1 large carrot
3 scallions or ½ red onion
1 large red chilli (optional)
2 tablespoons seeds (I used a mix of pumpkin and sunflower)
A handful of edible flower petals

1. To make the dressing roughly chop the herbs and the garlic and put into a food processor or blender with the yoghurt and mayonnaise. Season with salt and pepper and blitz until smooth. Taste and add more seasoning as needed.

2. Finely slice the cabbage into thin strips. Cut the beetroot, kohlrabi and carrot into matchstick sized pieces. You can do this by hand or with a mandolin or the large grating attachment on a food processor. You can also grate the vegetables with a box grater, but I find the texture of the slaw isn’t so crisp as the pieces end up being rather small. Finely slice the scallions or if using a red onion slice into thin half-moons. Slice the chilli (if using) into thin slices. Put all the vegetables into a bowl and mix well.

3. Put the seeds into a dry frying pan and toast over a medium heat for a couple of minutes until just starting to brown and little and smell toasty.

4. Add the dressing to the sliced vegetables and mix well. Put into a serving dish and sprinkle over the toasted seeds and a few edible flower petals to garnish.

It is best to mix the dressing and vegetables just before serving, but this will keep well in the fridge for a couple of days.