Darina Allen

Cruditées with Garlic Mayonnaise*

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Preparation info

  • Difficulty

    Easy

Appears in

Simply Delicious: Book 1

Simply Delicious

By Darina Allen

Published 1989

  • About

Cruditées with Garlic Mayonnaise is one of my favourite starters. It fulfills all my criteria for a first course: small helpings of very crisp vegetables with a good garlicky home-made mayonnaise. The plates of Cruditées look tempting, taste delicious and, provided you keep the helpings small, are not too filling. Better still, it’s actually good for you —so you can feel very virtuous instead of feeling pangs of guilt!

Another great plus for this recipe I’ve discovered is that children love Cruditées. They even love Garlic Mayonnaise provided they don’t hear some grown up saying how much they dislike garlic, and you can feel happy to see your children polishing off plates of raw vegetables for their supper, really quick to prepare and full of wonderful vitamins and minerals.

Cruditées are a perfect first course for Winter or Summer, but to be really delicious one must choose very crisp and fresh vegetables. Cut the vegetables into bite-sized bits so they can be picked up easily. You don’t need knives and forks because they are usually eaten with fingers.

Use as many of the following vegetables as are in season:

Ingredients

  • very fresh button mushrooms, quartered
  • tomatoes quartered, or left whole with the calyx on if they are freshly picked
  • purple sprouting broccoli, broken (not cut) into florettes calabrese (green sprouting broccoli), broken into florettes cauliflower, broken into florettes French beans or mange tout
  • baby carrots, or larger carrots cut into sticks 5 cm/2 inches long approx. cucumber, cut into sticks 5 cm/2 inches long approx. tiny spring onions, trimmed red cabbage, cut into strips
  • celery, cut into sticks 5 cm/2 inches long approx. chicory, in leaves
  • red, green or yellow pepper, cut into strips 5 cm/2 inches long approx., seeds removed
  • very fresh Brussels sprouts, cut into halves or quarters
  • whole radishes, with green tops left on
  • parsley, finely chopped
  • thyme, finely chopped
  • chives, finely chopped
  • sprigs of watercress

Method

A typical plate of Cruditées might include the following: 4 sticks of carrot, 2 or 3 sticks of red and green pepper, 2 or 3 sticks of celery, 2 or 3 sticks of cucumber, 1 mushroom cut in quarters, 1 whole radish with a little green leaf left on, 1 tiny tomato or 2 quarters, 1 Brussels sprout cut in quarters, and a little pile of chopped fresh herbs.

Wash and prepare the vegetables. Arrange on individual white side plates in contrasting colours, with a little bowl of Garlic Mayonnaise in the centre. Alternatively, do a large dish or basket for the centre of the table. Arrange little heaps of each vegetable in contrasting colours. Put a bowl of Garlic Mayonnaise in the centre and then guests can help themselves.

Instead of serving the Garlic Mayonnaise in a bowl one could make an edible container by cutting a slice off the top of a tomato and hollowing out the seeds. Alternatively, cut a 4 cm/l½ inch round of cucumber and hollow out the centre with a melon bailer or a teaspoon. Then fill or pipe the Garlic Mayonnaise into the tomato or cucumber. Arrange in the centre of the plate of Cruditées.

© 1989 Darina Allen. All rights reserved.

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