Green chopped salad & whipped tofu

Inspired by the bandwagon, made tasty by the veg patch, this salad will please the Instagram algorithm but still taste good.

Chopped salads. It’s a thing.

For reasons beyond me, The Youngsters have decided that finely dicing the contents of a regular salad and arranging it in pretty shapes on the plate makes it no longer just the same old salad it was last week, but A New Thing. And, typically, The Algorithm agrees.

I will admit it does look enticing.

Much better than it does once you drown it in dressing and toss it all together, by which time it looks like, you guessed it, the Same Old Salad but in smaller pieces. I will give them this though: finely dicing the ingredients means you get more flavours in each forkful. And it encourages you to use more ingredients that the bog-standard lettuce/tomato/cucumber trio. Also, there is nothing tastier than fresh, crunchy veg swimming in a really punchy vinaigrette.

Which is good because I have a LOT of crunch in the patch.

The beans are at their peak and the kohl rabi are each rapidly approaching the size of a melon. It all needs using and, picked fresh, everything is so sweet and crisp that cooking it seems a shame. So chopped salad it is.

The herbs also continue to be forest-like.

And once again, worryingly, the bandwagon offers inspiration. Tofu. Whipped tofu. All over Instagram at the moment, I’ve been looking for a way into tofu and wonder if this might be it, were it to be laced with chopped herbs and new garlic for flavour. (Incidentally,

Claire Ruston

posted another wonderful gateway tofu dish just last week here.)

The upshot is that what began in mockery turns out quite tasty.

Because ideas can come from the strangest places. In bemoaning, as I was, the nonsense of food fads that trend on Instagram and TikTok, I realised that they might in fact help me deal with the harvest. So, whilst the Instagram algorithm may hate me and hide my posts from everyone (literally, it’s crickets and tumbleweed out there), it does turn out quite a nice lunch from the veg patch.

Next week, butter boards*…

*joke

Bandwagon chopped salad and whipped tofu

Joking aside, this recipe can only be more than an Insta-fad if the veg are as fresh and as pert as a young influencer and the tofu generously seasoned. I was very snobbish about whipped tofu, but it turns out to be delicious. Just be sure to use the best quality firm tofu you can find. Obviously, the amount of faff you put into the plating up is up to you, but I do recommend the small effort of finely dicing the veg since this way you get a bit of everything in each forkful.

Serves 1 influences

• 100g kohlrabi, peeled

• 75g courgettes

• 1 spring onion

• 7-8 sugar snaps