Set for the toss (+recipes)

Tuna nicoise salad. Photo / Supplied

I want to start this column about salads by describing what I found on bertc.com - a website offering a collection of weird but apparently legitimate recipes, collected over some 10 years by Canadian Bert Christensen.

What an eye-opener that website is - cow udder eclairs, chocolate cricket chip cookies, fruit bat soup, banana worm bread, seal brain fritters ... the list goes on.

However, as I was planning a salads column, I clicked into Bert's salad section, where I found pig's ear salad, simmered with star anise and ginger, sliced thinly with carrots, cucumbers, onions and tossed lightly with plum sauce; and a spider salad, made from non-venomous arachnids, steamed and tossed through romaine lettuce, parsley, portobello mushrooms, radishes and spring onions.

And finally, a more realistic (if not more appetisingly named) dish called a hairball salad of "saliva" (actually Italian vinaigrette) dressing with avocado mash and Alfalfa sprouts, rolled into walnut-sized balls, served on grated carrot.

At this stage you're probably doing one of three things: retching, rushing to the internet to check my sources, or craving the simplicity of a fresh, green salad. For this column you will be pleased to know I have decided to forgo the pig's ear salad (although I have eaten pig's ear before, and it can be luscious), instead opting for more classic salads.

It is only in the past few years that classic salads are returning to menus, often with new twists and with the ubiquitous "retro" added to the menu so they sound trendy. Waldorf salad was first created between 1893 and 1896 at New York's famous Waldorf Hotel. It consists of raw apple, celery and walnuts, dressed with mayonnaise and served over lettuce. The latest remodel of this classic is to slice the apples thinly on a mandolin, stomping out the core with a small cookie cutter, drizzling the fruit with olive oil, lemon and sea salt, then creating a stack with small balls of celery vodka sorbet, candied walnuts and a yoghurt dressing.

Another classic, the Mikado salad, consists of potatoes, shrimps, chrysanthemum petals and pimento. It's a surprisingly great combination of flavours, and the latest version uses jersey benne potatoes simmered in milk and honey, with small, grilled prawns, roasted pimento puree, cucumber curls and the petals.

But the key thing about salads for most of us is that they shouldn't mean hard work. It's summer, we want free-flowing salads that are just tossed together in the bowl. And the best tip for making good green salads is to invest in a salad spinner, which will remove excess water and keep things crisp.

One of my favourite simple salads is a delicious textural mix of pear, baby beets, steamed kumara, toasted walnuts, blue cheese and vincotto wine.

One that oozes deliciousness is the famous Nicoise salad from the Cote d'Azur of France, served with seared slices of tuna, green runner beans, potatoes, vine-ripened tomatoes, tiny olives and a soft-boiled egg. A pungent dressing made from anchovies, basil, garlic and olive oil completes the dish.

The golden rule for good salads is you don't need weird ingredients; you just need fresh, good-quality produce.