Swiss Salatteller

If you’ve had a salad at a Swiss restaurant, chances are it looked a bit like this:

Served as a main course (and often listed as Gemischter Salat on the menu), or a side to a Fitnessteller (basically the Swiss equivalent of a carb-free platter, usually something grilled, like steak or shrimp, with just salad on the side) the Swiss salad is a bit of an unsung hero.

Although variations exist, a typical Swiss salad plate is made up of individual little salads of beets, carrots, celery root, corn and cucumber (two common variants that I have not included here are tomato and lightly dressed lettuce leaves).

The idea of making five separate salad dressings was a bit tiring, so I instead made two base sauces, and adjusted them as necessary. You can easily make them in advance, then process the vegetables, add them and voilá.

I like a not too saucy salad (to let the vegetables shine through) but the genius of this method is that you can add as much sauce as you like. I also find the very heavy mayo-based sauces a bit too rich, so I have made a yogurt based one instead, with just a bit of mayo for flavour.

I recently bought my very first food processor, which makes the vegetable prep for this salad incredibly easy. Previously I would have used a mandolin, or even a box grater.

I like to make my dressings in jam jars (à la Jamie Oliver), though I find it easier to weigh the liquid in—just pour slowly! If you have too much dressing, just pop the jar in the fridge, it keeps for about a week.