Jenny Linford Makes Truly Exciting Salads
by Jenny Linford
We are delighted to welcome Jenny Linford to the Sous Chef kitchen, to share her top tips on stunning salads you can make all year round.
Jenny has recently written The Kew Gardens Salad Book. A celebration of flavours, textures, dressings and (sometimes surprising) ingredients that make extraordinary salads.
Sous Chef founder Nicola and Jenny first met at the crack of dawn in Covent Garden Market several years ago, united by a shared enthusiasm for food and producers.
Since then, their friendship has been nourished by countless meals, conversations, and cooking sessions.
See more of Jenny's recipes here, or browse ingredients for fabulous salad dressings.
What makes a salad?
"When people think of salad, they often picture something leafy, perhaps vegetarian, like a simple tomato salad.
But in writing this book, I wanted to expand and liberate the idea of what a salad can be, and to make it more exciting.
A salad doesn’t have to be just leaves or vegetables, it can be potato-based, or even include meat, like chicken salad.
For me, the true defining feature of a salad is that it’s dressed. The dressing is what brings everything together and transforms the ingredients into a salad.
The Kew Gardens Salad Book
Working with Kew Gardens has been a great honour, and what makes it especially rewarding is that proceeds go directly to supporting their vital work in conserving and researching biodiversity.
The guiding idea behind the book is simple but important: we need to eat more plants, and not just more, but a wider variety. With climate change disrupting harvests globally, expanding the diversity of what we eat is a small but powerful way to make a difference.
My Food Inspiration
My food story has always been shaped by diverse cultures. I was born in London to an English father and a Singaporean mother, and spent part of my childhood in Singapore before returning to the UK.
Later, my family moved to Florence, where I lived as a teenager. Those formative years exposed me to incredibly rich food traditions, which have never left me.
It’s no surprise, really, that I became a food writer. My curiosity for ingredients has always been insatiable I rarely leave a food shop without picking up something new to try.
Why Salads?
I love salads because they are wonderfully simple to make, yet endlessly varied. They are one of the easiest and most delicious ways to add more plants to your diet.
Three Surprising Salads To Make All Summer
The first recipe I shared was a kimchi bean-thread noodle salad. Bean-thread noodles, which resemble rice noodles, are the perfect partner for the bold, tangy flavours of kimchi. It’s a dish that reflects what I aim for in my cooking: simple, vibrant, and full of life.
Next up, Freekeh and Nectarine salad. Freekeh – a Middle Eastern staple – is made from young wheat that is lightly roasted, giving it a subtle smoky flavour. It has a pleasant, slightly chewy texture and is an excellent base for salads, paired here with juicy nectarines and assorted salad leaves.
And finally, tamarind glazed chickpeas. Tamarind pulp, from the tamarind tree, is an important flavouring in Indian cuisine, used to add a distinctive sourness to dishes, drinks and chutneys. In a British context, it is an important ingredient in tangy brown sauce and Worcestershire sauce. Inspired by Indian street food, this salad combines flavours and textures to vibrant effect.
About the author
Jenny Linford is a London-based food writer and a long-standing member of the Guild of Food Writers. She has written more than fifteen books, including The Missing Ingredient: The Curious Role of Time in Food and Flavor, which explores time as the "universal, invisible ingredient" in the food we grow, make, and cook.
