I’ve been a Riverford customer for ever, or so it seems. My account tells me I’ve ordered from them 273 times (22.75 years of weekly orders) which means I placed my first order shortly after my diagnosis of breast cancer. They’ve been an important part of my drive to stay healthy: never more so than the way they’ve managed to keep all their customers supplied with fresh vegetables during the coronavirus lockdown. This weekend they added some Easter roasting joints to their website and I chose an organic duck. With only two of us for lunch on Easter Day, I ended up with much more meat than we could  eat so I will be using it in various creative ways over the next few days. Tonight’s dinner was delicious!

This evening I used one of the duck breasts, without the skin, to form the basis of a delicious and healthy salad, it provided more than enough for two of us. I’ve listed the ingredients below but, as ever, you can use what you’ve got in the fridge to combine flavours:

Ingredients

• 1 pre-roasted duck breast (or a fresh one if you like!)
• half a dozen walnuts
• half a pomegranate
• a few black olives
• a few slivers of fennel
• a handful of pumpkin seeds
• 10-12 fine slices from the round end of a leek
• a few basil leaves
• some wild garlic
• couple of handfuls of lettuce
• couple of handfuls of rocket
• extra virgin olive oil
• sherry or balsamic vinegar
• salt and black pepper

Method

Put all the ingredients into a big salad dish, drizzle over olive oil and sherry vinegar to taste. Toss together before serving. I always use Nigella’s trick with pomegranates: cut it in half and bash the outside with a wooden spoon to get the pips out.

Variations

You could do the same with any sort of cold meat – chicken or lamb would be nice. Tarragon would be tasty instead of basil, and pecans would work just as well as walnuts.