Turkey Salad with Nuts and Cranberries

When she talks Christmas, Nigella always gives excellent ideas for what to do with leftovers, and an Italian-inspired Insalata di Tracchino is one such recipe.  Ever mindful of visual appeal, and with a developed palate for bitterness, Nigella advocates the use of radicchio as the basis for her salad, but as much as I want to be sophisticated enough to eat this most decorative of leaf, the bitterness is simply too much for me (incidentally, I feel the same way about Campari and Aperol).

As I am adamant on providing a turkey salad as part of my light Christmas dinner spread, I have persevered and come up with my own version using mixed salad leaves and including dried cranberries (cranberries and turkey: of course!) and toasted almond flakes.   I've deliberately left the quantity of meat vague, so you can simply add what you have left over, and in any case, it's pretty easy to expand this salad to fit however big your guest list is.  When not cooking for Christmas, roast chicken, smoked chicken and smoked turkey work nicely here too.  This may be hubris, but I think my recipe outdoes the original.

Serves 4- 6 as part of a smorgasboard, or 2 as a main meal.


Ingredients

Cooked turkey meat, shredded (left over from lunch)
1 bag mixed salad leaves
4 tbsp dried cranberries
3 tbsp pine nuts, toasted on a dry frypan until fragrant and slightly burnished.
3 tbsp flaked almonds, toasted as above.
6 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
big handful fresh parsley, roughly chopped
salt and pepper.

Method

Make the dressing: put the olive oil, lemon juice and seasoning into a small jar with a lid. Close and shake. Put the lettuce in a mixing bowl, pour over approximately 2/3 of the dressing and toss to coat. Arrange the lettuce artistically on a large platter or salad bowl then top with the turkey meat. Scatter the parsley, cranberries, pinenuts and almonds, then drizzle over the remainder of the dressing.

Variation: to bulk this out to be a main meal, I often add additional salad vegetables like diced tomato, cucumber and avocado.