Nasturtium, walnut and cherry tomato salad

Plating up is fun with flowers.

I know that urban foraging is a bit of a trend right now. I've never been keen to head into the woods, skipping, with an empty basket ready for toadstools. However, when I passed by some nasturtium during a walk yesterday, it caught my eye.

Apparently these flowers and leaves are quite trendy at the moment, as are edible flowers in general. My first experience of eating nasturtium though was when I was a little girl. My grandmother had a huge patch of it down the side of her house. She introduced me to the plant, and told me that you could eat the round, peppery leaves. 

I was somewhat skeptical, but I did have a nibble, and they have reminded me of her ever since. 

Both leaves and flowers are edible.

In the park yesterday, there was huge patch of nasturtiums growing wild. Some of the leaves were as big as teacup saucers. I picked three of these, and arranged them carefully in my carry bag. I also picked some smaller leaves. 

The flowers were a bit trickier (where was my Little Red Riding Hood basket when I needed it?). I had a 1km walk to get home and I didn't want them to get squashed. I'd been to the chemist earlier and had bought medication. I dumped the tablets into my handbag and filled the box up with flowers. (I'm quite sure there is some metaphorical value in that.)

I stopped at Woolies on the way home and bought cherry tomatoes and baby spinach, planning to make a salad. 

The flowers travelled well; when I got home I examined everything and found them all intact.

Perfect!

I washed everything, and then couldn't resist tasting them. I don't remember eating the flowers as a child, just the leaves, so I tried a flower. They taste quite peppery and a bit like... a flower!

There is also a little channel (which is apparently called a "nectar tube") at the back where they store their nectar. Unsurprisingly, this part of the flower was sweet. 

I used the extra large leaves to line my salad bowl, then in a separate bowl I added most of the flowers and all of the small leaves, the baby spinach, some flat leaf parsley that I found in the fridge, half the punnet of cherry tomatoes (sliced in half) and a handful of walnuts. 

I made a quick and simple vinaigrette - white wine vinegar, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. It was nice and tangy to compliment the slightly bitter taste of the flowers and leaves, and to add some zest to the milder taste of the spinach and walnuts. 

Lastly, I poured the vinaigrette over the salad, and used the remaining flowers as a garnish. Then I had to figure out how to use my SLR all over again and took no less than 59 photographs of the salad. 

How did it taste? Like a tangy, slightly crunchy sweet garden. The petals added a lovely and unusual texture. Yum. I'll definitely be raiding the park for more freebies in future.

My salad.