Many strange-sounding names float around on lists of salad ingredients in fashionable recipe books these days. So let’s continue with the list of the “new” ingredients :
1. Curly endive is dark green with prettily-shaped leaves and a slightly bitter flavor. This green is in the chicory family. You may substitute any chicory family member in this list for another. Remember to use them all in moderation. Some people taste the bitter flavor only slightly, but others are very sensitive to the taste (this is a genetic trait).
2. Belgian endive is slightly bitter but still mild-flavored. It is also a chicory. It grows in tightly bunched cylindrical-shaped, very pretty sprouts.
3. Plain endive is also a bitter chicory with lettuce-like leaves which curl at the ends.
4. Radicchio also called red or Italian chicory, is bitter like other chicory family members. It forms small tight heads like miniature head lettuce. It owes its popularity particularly to its beautiful colors, red with white tinges.
5. Escarole, another chicory, has broad leaves and is easily confused with curly endive. The two are very similar in their looks and flavors, but escarole has plain, lettuce-like leaves.
6.Watercress is a mild-flavored green, has tiny leaves that add a small tingle with a touch of piquant to salads. These are the greens that are frequently available in a good produce department, though they are not all in daily use in many households.
The lesser-known greens tend to be more available in grocery stores in ethnic areas of a city or in supermarkets of wealthier neighborhoods. They include:
7. Mâche, also called lamb’s lettuce, corn salad or field salad is popular in the Mediterranean, though it grows wild in most corn or other grain fields. It is a bland green having small leaves. It adds hardly more than variety and interest to your salad.
8. Nasturtium flowers and leaves are edible but rarely available in the produce section of a supermarket. They have a wonderful peppery flavor. Both the round lush-green leaves and multicolored flowers look beautiful in any salad, and your taste buds definitely perk up and notice the punch.
9. Sorrel or sour grass is more a European favorite. There cooks serve it cooked as well as raw in salads. It looks like spinach with smaller, dark green leaves. This green is quite tart. Use only a few leaves in each salad. In small quantity it gives a truly jazzy, sour flavor to your blander greens.