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Christmas salad á la Berg’s Fairytale Garden
You can make a Christmas salad from anything you have at home or in the garden. This salad is pretty much made with everything we have in the garden right now. You can always supplement with purchased vegetables. For this colourful Christmas salad, we have used the following ingredients:
Salad:
Kale
Purple kale
Picked lettuce
Siberian kale
Red cabbage (we had small heads, but you can use cut)
Beetroots (red or yellow)
Jerusalem artichokes
Mangolds (rosy, pink and red)
Chinese pink celery
Cauliflower
Cucumber
Jungle cucumber
Peppers
Orange
Lemon
Raspberry
Dressing:
A nice olive oil
A bit of white wine vinegar
A teaspoon honey (preferably liquid)
A teaspoon mustard
A pinch of fresh cut chilli
Salt and pepper
Pickling liquid for fast pickling:
2 dl organic vinegar
4 dl boiling water
2 tablespoons of sugar or honey
Salt and pepper
(season as you wish)
How to:
First, clean the vegetables. Then cut the beets on a mandolin iron in the finest thickness. Fast pickle them in the pickling liquid. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, and when the sugar or honey has melted, put the beets in the mix. They should get about 30 minutes depending on the thickness of the vegetables. They should not get completely soft.
Then grate the kale, purple cabbage, Siberian cabbage and lettuce into smaller pieces in a bowl. We like rustic salad.
Chop vegetables and fruit in the desired size.
If you want lemons, but they seem to be too sour, you can put them in a small brine of olive oil and honey for 15 minutes.
Cut the Jerusalem artichokes on the mandolin iron also and subsequently put in lemon juice so they do not oxidize and turn brown. They also bring a slightly sour taste to the salad. So it is a pure win-win.
Red cabbage should be sliced and used fresh. If you use small plants (if you have any), you can make them a little softer by putting them in boiling water for 2-3 min. However, they will lose some of their colours.
We love acid in a salad, it makes it so fresh. And we are so lucky that we have several different citrus trees in our Juliana Gartner greenhouse. So here we have grown oranges and lemons at home. But these can otherwise be easily bought.
Before you mix all the ingredients in the lettuce, we always turn the lettuce into a delicious olive oil and possibly. a little red or white wine vinegar. When the lettuce is moist from the oil, then sprinkle well with salt and pepper and turn the lettuce again. From here you can mix the sliced ingredients in the lettuce and serve it beautifully. Normally we would decorate with edible flowers, as we right now have bush roses, but we forgot. But colours just make one happy.
In general, you can mix everything you have in the fridge, kitchen garden or your purchased favourites.
If you want a real dinner salad where the satiety feels longer, you can fry either chickpeas or kidney beans in a pan. Remember to season them! We always put the beans on the salad when they are warm. Otherwise, a freshly baked baguette is always great.
If you want a dinner with more substance, the salad can also be used as an accessory e.g., for roast duck or other meat.
Then just enjoy a light meal during the heavy food's season.
Merry Christmas! And bon appetit :)
Kåre & Janus
Bergs Fairytale Garden

Om Bergs Fairytale Garden
Berg’s Fairytale Garden
Janus Berg and Kåre Stigel – kitchen garden and cultivation enthusiasts from Denmark.
Janus and Kåre have a Danish Facebook and Instagram profile “Berg’s Fairytale Garden”. They try to be as self-sufficient as possible, and they will take you around their kitchen garden and greenhouse.
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