Endive salad with charred leeks and thyme oil

For this endive salad, I wanted to create a fresh tasting early autumn dish, so I’ve chosen lighter herbal, citrus and dairy notes, in the form of the lemon thyme oil and feta, to lift the dish. If you wanted to create a wintery dish, you could draw on the smoky woody notes of the leeks instead, by adding toasted nuts or smoky bacon in place of the feta.

It can be hard to retain fresh herbal flavours when macerating, however this method works really well and will retain its fragrance for several days if chilled.

Note
To add more autumnal notes, replace the lemony feta cheese with 2 handfuls of trimmed chanterelles that have been fried briskly in a little sunflower oil.

This recipe is taken from 'Sight, Smell, Touch, Taste, Sound: A New way to cook' by Sybil Kapoor, published by Pavilion Books, £24. Buy a copy here.