Master it: How to cook today. Rory O'Connell

at all and you would probably be better off without them. Where possible, buy leaves in small quantities to ensure freshness and to avoid waste.

      Whereas a bowl of mixed and varied leaves, sweet and bitter, green and coloured, soft and crisp, is of course the goal and a joy, it only works if the leaves are of really good quality. Never be afraid to serve a salad bowl that lacks in variety as long as it is strong on quality.

      Leaf salads

      Making a perfect leaf salad is a technique that some cooks feel eludes them. It requires care and a light hand, but it is a skill everyone can acquire. Be gentle so as not to bruise the leaves.

      Keys to success

      Choose leaves that are as fresh and as seasonal as possible. Tired-looking leaves will yield a tired salad.

      Wash the leaves as soon as possible after getting them to your kitchen, even if you are not planning to use them immediately.

      Remove damaged leaves and cut whole heads just above the base of the stalk to release the individual leaves. Do not wrench the leaves off the root or you will damage them.

      Soak the leaves in cold water for 30 minutes before carefully draining and drying them in small quantities in a salad spinner. If you don’t dry the leaves, the dressing will just run off, leaving you with a puddle of watery dressing in the bottom of the salad bowl.

      Keep leaves wrapped and cold if not using immediately after drying. I like to wrap them in a single layer of kitchen paper or a light damp cloth and then slip them into a large plastic bag or bowl before storing them in the fridge. Fresh leaves will keep very well for a few days this way.

      Gently lifting and tossing the salad leaves in the dressing so that you don’t bruise them

      Always accurately measure ingredients for a dressing or vinaigrette. The aim is to balance the sharp ingredient such as vinegar or lemon juice with the richer oils or cream, to achieve a pleasant flavour that neither under-or overwhelms the leaves.

      Place the leaves for tossing in a bowl that looks too big for the job. Plenty of space allows for a delicate tossing of the leaves.

      Larger leaves should be delicately torn into large bite-sized pieces.

      Always shake or whisk a dressing to ensure an even distribution of ingredients before adding a little less than you think you need to the leaves. I use my hands to dress the leaves, allowing the leaves to fall through my outstretched fingers. You may use salad servers. Add more dressing if necessary. The leaves should be very lightly glazed, not soggy.

      Taste the salad before serving to see if a grain of salt is required.

      Serve a leaf salad immediately after dressing.

      Carefully measured dressing ingredients

      Winter salad of organic greens

      In theory, winter is the most difficult season to have a salad of leaves, and some people cast the idea of a leaf salad right out of their minds during the darker months. There are in fact lots of great things for the salad bowl at this time, and in many ways the salad bowl is even more important and significant, as there really are few other salad vegetables such as tomatoes, courgettes, cucumbers and beetroots around. Certainly a winter salad requires more creativity than the times when the garden is full of green leafy things, but that just adds to the fun. You will need to think outside the box here.

      So what are the greens that are growing at this chilly time? Lamb’s lettuce survives snow and frost and is great on its own or as part of a mixture of leaves. Bitter and beautiful radicchios and chicories seem to thrive on glacial conditions. Winter cabbage is underrated and can be very finely shredded – a test of your knife skills. Brussels sprouts can have their leaves separated, or finely shredded like the cabbage. A mild snap will yield watercress and land cress. The land cress self-seeds like mad in my garden and I eat it hairy roots and all. Speaking of a mild spell, Brussels sprout plants, given the correct clement conditions, will throw out little shoots of new fresh green growth which are quite fantastic in a salad or cooked as a vegetable. The widely available kales such as curly and red Russian can be destalked and torn into bite-sized pieces, and these too, like the Brussels sprout, will react to a rise in temperature with quite delicious little new shoots. Small cavolo nero leaves, also destalked and torn into small pieces, are dark and terrific. Broccoli tops or greens add another flavour and texture. If some of your parsley and chives have survived the cold, they can be coarsely chopped and added to the bowl. If it is a really chilly day or the leaves are a particularly bitter bunch, I sometimes add a tiny bit of honey to the dressing, but be cautious as you don’t want the dressing to taste sweet.