Summer garden salad (Letniy salat)

This might look like a simple salad, but something incredible happens when you add soured cream to it all. The natural juices from the vegetables create a beautiful dressing for all the ingredients.

Summer garden salad (Letniy salat). Credit: Karen Fisher / Penguin Random House

• serves

  4-6

• prep

  10 minutes

• difficulty

  Easy

Ingredients

• 3 tomatoes (preferably heirloom tomatoes), cut into wedges
• 1 large cucumber, halved lengthways and finely sliced
• ¼ bunch spring onions (scallions) or ½ red onion, roughly chopped
• 4 radishes, halved and thinly sliced
• ¼ bunch dill, roughly chopped
• Handful of salad leaves
• Good drizzle of golden unrefined sunflower oil
• About 125ml (4fl oz) sour cream (adjust to your liking)

Instructions

1. Add all the vegetables and herbs to a large bowl and add generous amounts of salt, pepper and oil. Add the sour cream and toss the ingredients well, coating everything in the cream.
2. Leave to stand for a few minutes before serving.

Note

• You can also scoop this salad onto rye bread, and pour a spoonful of the dressing over the lot.
• It may seem like a lot of soured cream in the ingredients, but it's what makes this salad so special.

Recipe from Sour Cherries & Sunflowers by Anastasia Zolotarev, photography by Karen Fisher (Quadrille).

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.