Salad burnet

Pimprenelle

What it is

Sanguisorba means blood-absorber, from the centuries when the crushed leaf was pressed onto a wound to stop it bleeding; the kitchen found the plant much later and by another road. It is a rose relative that tastes squarely of cucumber, and it holds its green through a mild winter when nothing else in the herb bed does.

In the kitchen

Take only the young leaflets from the centre of the rosette; the older outer ones go dry, fibrous and flavourless. Never chop it fine — bruise it into cream or vinegar, and leave it whole in a salad.

Goes with

Cucumber Cream Egg Trout Fromage blanc Chervil White wine vinegar Radish

In season alongside

Chickweed Cucumber Frisée Gernika pepper Green bean Komatsuna

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