Michel Roux Jr
Michel Roux Jr is the owner & two-star Michelin chef at the London restaurant Le Gavroche, MasterChef judge, host of the BBC’s Saturday Kitchen and author of The French Kitchen & other cookbooks.
Michel’s Oriental Summer Salad
Michel Roux Jr
Effort:
Complexity:
Cost:
Serves: 8
Prep time: 5 mins + soaking time for the carrot
Ingredients:
1 grapefruit
4 spring onions
12 red radishes
½ Savoy cabbage
1 medium carrot
1 round lettuce
160g bean sprouts
1 tablespoon crunchy peanut butter
1 tablespoon each of light soy sauce, clear honey and sesame oil
juice of 1 lime
salt & pepper
Veg Portions / Serving: 1
Recipe donated by Michel Roux Jr for Veg Power. Recipe and portrait photography from "The Marathon Chef" by Michel Roux Jr.
I love this Oriental summer salad. It’s fresh, easy to make and full of lots of good stuff. There are ingredients in there that kids adore like honey and peanut butter and it’s fun for them to make. It’s recipes like this that are great for introducing children to cooking and with such a variety of ingredients and flavours – tangy grapefruit, crunchy carrot, beansprouts and peanut butter, savoury and sweet soy – it’s a joy!
Method:
With the back of a fork, mix the honey and peanut butter together, gradually adding the lime juice, soy sauce and sesame oil. Check the seasoning and set aside.
Peel the grapefruit and separate into segments. Slice the spring onions and radishes. Shred the cabbage and blanch in boiling, salted water for 10 seconds. Refresh, drain and dry well. Peel the carrot and cut into very fine julienne strips. Put these in iced water to curl for an hour.
Just before serving, toss the vegetables in the dressing and serve in the leaves of the round lettuce. Decorate with grapefruit segments and the drained carrot julienne.
Engaging Kids
Kids who engage regularly with veg through veg-themed activities, such as arts and crafts, sensory experiences, growing and cooking are shown to be more likely to eat the veg they engage with. Encouraging kids to engage and play with veg is the handy first step to them developing a good relationship with veg and life-long healthy eating.
Kids in the kitchen
Get the kids to make the dressing – squeezing the lime then mixing it with the peanut butter, soy sauce and seasoning is bound to keep them happy for a while. They can also have a go at peeling the grapefruit and separating it into segments.
Activities
While getting kids to interact with veggies for real and using their senses to explore them is best, encouraging hands off activities like arts & crafts, puzzles & games or at-home science experiments can be a great start, particularly for those who are fussier eaters or struggle with anything too sensory. Use these veg-themed activities as a stepping stone to interacting with the veg themselves. We have loads of crafty downloads here, puzzles here, and quirky science with veg here.
Sensory
Once you feel your child is ready to engage a little more, you can show them how to explore the veg you have on hand with their senses, coming up with playful silly descriptions of how a veg smells, feels, looks, sounds and perhaps even tastes. Find ideas, videos and some simple sensory education session ideas to get you started here.
Serving
The moments before food is offered can be a perfect opportunity for engagement that can help make it more likely a child will eat it! Giving children a sense of ownership in the meal can make a big difference to their feelings going into it and the pride they take in it. You know your child best, but if you aren’t sure where to start, we have some fun and simple ideas for easy roles you can give them in the serving process over here.
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