Guess the ingredient in this not-your-average salad

Growing up in Russia, when we said we were going to have a salad, we did not mean iceberg lettuce. Salad to us was a combination of cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and sunflower oil or cucumbers, radishes, sour cream and dill. You see, to this day, I rarely include lettuce in my salads: to me, it's more fun to use a variety of vegetables with a bite to them instead of greens that mostly just contain water.

Years ago I was visiting my friend Cindy and her family, and her dinner salad included something I've never seen before. Take a look below: do you recognize this vegetable? (I'll tell you what it is after the photograph)

The photograph above is of hearts of palm. According to Wikipedia, heart of palm is "a vegetable harvested from the inner core and growing bud of certain palm trees. It is costly because harvesting in the wild kills the tree. Heart of palm is often eaten in a salad, sometimes called 'millionaire's salad'."

I guess this would explain why a can of marinated hearts of palm costs around $3.50 in a store. But they are worth it. The texture and taste reminds me of marinated white asparagus.

Here is the Not-Your-Average salad I made with hearts of palm:

Ingredients

spinach

hard-boiled egg, cut into wedges

tomato, cut into wedges

red pepper, cut into strips

hearts of palm, cut lengthwise

olive oil

salt & pepper

Directions
You can either mix all the ingredients together or make a composed salad that shows off each ingredient. Drizzle the salad with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Don't you agree that this looks more fun than a plate of lettuce with a few random slices of cucumbers and tomatoes tossed in?

What ingredients do you add to your salads to make them stand out?

• Share this on del.icio.us
• Digg this!
• Stumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUpon
• Share this on Reddit
• Add this to Google Bookmarks
• Tweet This!
• Share this on Facebook
• Subscribe
• Buzz up!