Chicory, blood orange and beetroot salad | Recipe of the week

Most of us picture salad as a drab, boring and quite tasteless bowl of lettuce and cucumber making the cake option even easier to choose.

So to make the salad have a fighting chance against cake we need to pack it with flavour an d colour.

I think I’m going to leave the cake in the fridge and tuck into this for a tasty lunch...

Ingredients, serves 4

2 small beetroots

4 blood oranges

3 red chicory

12 black olives, chopped

100g crumbly goats cheese

80ml olive oil

1 shallot finely chopped

Method

1. Put the beetroot into a small tray with 1cm water in the bottom. sprinkle on a pinch of sea salt, cover with foil and put in a pre-heated oven 180c/gas 5 for 40 minutes. Check the beetroots are cooked by inserting a skewer which will have no resistance. Remove the skins by hand and allow to cool.

2. Whilst the beetroots are cooking, zest the blood oranges into a saucepan, add the juice. Now add the chopped shallot and olive oil.

3. Cook on a medium heat until the shallots soften and then liquidise – season to taste and set aside.

4. Cut the stems off the chicory and separate the leaves. Segment the remaining two oranges. Cut each beetroot into 12 pieces.

5. To assemble the salad arrange the beetroot, chicory and orange segments around four plates. Crumb over the cheese and sprinkle on the black olives.

6. Spoon the dressing over the whole dish before serving.