Spring side salads you’ll crave: cabbage slaw, creamy potato and garden greens from Anastasia Zolotarev

TV personality and recipe content creator Anastasia Zolotarev has just released her first cookbook Sour Cherries and Sunflowers.

She shared three delicious salads for spring, which would make a great main or serve four to six people as a side dish.

Summer Garden Salad

This may look simple, but soured cream transforms the vegetables into a salad with its own creamy dressing. It can also be scooped onto rye bread with the dressing spooned over.

Ingredients

• 3 tomatoes (preferably heirloom), cut into wedges
• 1 large cucumber, halved lengthways and finely sliced
• ¼ bunch spring onions (or ½ red onion), roughly chopped
• 4 radishes, halved and thinly sliced
• ¼ bunch dill, roughly chopped
• Handful of salad leaves
• Good drizzle of golden unrefined sunflower oil
• About 125ml soured cream (adjust to taste)
• Salt and pepper

Method

1. Place vegetables and herbs in a large bowl. Add generous salt, pepper and oil.
2. Add soured cream and toss well to coat everything.
3. Leave to stand for a few minutes before serving.

Herby Potato Salad

A fresh potato salad best made a couple of hours ahead, full of herbs and tangy dressing.

Ingredients

• 1kg small to medium potatoes, scrubbed clean
• ½ bunch spring onions
• ½ bunch dill
• ½ bunch parsley
• 1 large cucumber

Ingredients for the dressing

• 200ml soured cream
• 1 heaped teaspoon Dijon mustard
• Zest and juice of 1 lemon
• Salt and pepper
• Golden unrefined sunflower oil

Method

1. Place unpeeled potatoes in a large pan, cover with water, add salt and bring to a simmer. Cook for 12 to 15 minutes depending on size.
2. Check doneness with a fork — they are ready when the centre is soft. Drain and cool to room temperature.
3. Peel skins, cut into quarters, and refrigerate covered for at least 45 minutes.
4. Fifteen minutes before serving, chop spring onions, dill and parsley. Halve cucumber lengthways and slice into half-moons.
5. Mix soured cream, mustard, lemon zest and juice, salt, pepper and oil in a small bowl. Taste and adjust seasoning.
6. In a large bowl, combine potatoes with dressing, cucumber and herbs. Mix well, then taste and adjust as preferred.

Cabbage and Cranberry Slaw

On chilly autumn mornings my mum used to be taken by her dad to forage for wild cranberries in the region outside their town in western Belarus.

She still talks about how she disliked foraging for frost-covered cranberries, unlike other wild foods, which were easier and more pleasant to gather.

Despite Mum’s dislike of those early-morning tramps over swampy wet ground, her love of cranberries is evident.

This slaw is a great base for them: the combination of juices from the cranberries, cabbage and other ingredients works well.

Allowing it to stand once everything is combined seems to go against all soggy-salad rules, but it’s delicious, as the released juices create a sort of fast ferment flavour.

Ingredients

• 400g red cabbage (about a quarter, stem removed), thinly shredded
• 1 carrot, grated
• ½ beetroot, grated
• 1 green apple, cored and grated
• Small handful of cranberries or lingonberries (if frozen, defrost at room temperature for a couple of hours)
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• Juice of ½ lemon
• 1 tablespoon honey
• Salt

Method

1. Put the shredded cabbage in a large mixing bowl, add two pinches of salt and massage for two minutes to release juices.
2. Add the grated carrot, beetroot, apple and cranberries. Combine roughly.
3. In a separate bowl, mix vinegar, lemon juice and honey. Pour over the salad and mix well.
4. Leave to stand for one hour until the ingredients soften and release liquid. Unless serving immediately, cover and refrigerate.
5. Mix again before serving. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt if needed.

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