I love beautiful color in my salads and spring is the absolute best time to do it! Pansies are a common flower and are completely edible. You can snip them from your garden (if you don’t use pesticides) or you can buy these at many grocery stores. You can also go foraging if you know what you’re getting yourself into. this rules out almost everything from florists, garden centers, and nurseries. If you plan to eat pansies, it’s a good idea either to grow them yourself or to order them from an edible-flower source.
Eat only pansies that are grown organically.
Pansies can have a mild, fresh flavor, depending on the variety and on how much of the flower you eat. A whole flower tastes stronger than the petals!
Lemon poppy dressing is bright and tart with a slight crunch from the poppy seeds (also a flower!!). The grilled endive has a little contract between the crisp radicchio and fresh strawberries.
The endive here can be substituted by radicchio or frisée, both close cousins. Endive boasts a healthy amount of nutrients- in a two-cup serving is 43 percent of the daily value for vitamin A, as well as 35 percent for folate and 21 percent for manganese. I am lightly grilling the Belgian endive here, but it’s just as delicious raw!
Enjoy!!
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- salt and pepper
- 3-4 heads Belgian Endive
- 1 head radicchio
- 1 pint strawberries
- 6-8 pansies, and assorted other edible flowers
- Zest 2 lemons
- ¼ cup lemon juice
- 2 Tablespoons agave
- ¼ Tablespoon mustard
- ½ cups extra virgin olive oil
- ½ Tablespoon poppy seeds
- Blend all the dressing ingredients, EXCEPT the poppy seeds, in a blender until smooth. Fold in the poppy seeds by hand. Set aside until ready to use.
- Heat a grill pan, cast iron or non-stick sauté pan or grill.
- Cut the Belgian endive lengthwise and toss in olive oil, salt and pepper.
- Place cut side down on a hot grill pan, hot sauté pan or hot grill.
- Cook about 1-2 minutes, until the cut side that touching the pan shows grill marks or is slightly caramelized and browned.
- Remove from the pan and set aside.
- Wash and remove the leaves of the head of radicchio.
- Wash and slice the strawberries in half length wise.
- Arrange the Belgian endive, radicchio and strawberries on the plate.
- Dress with the lemon poppy vinaigrette.
- Garnish with edible flowers, and enjoy!
there was no recipe for the poppy seed vinaigrette….
GAH! Thanks for pointing that out! It looks like the whole recipe was deleted at some point. Thanks, I’ve fixed it now.