Banana & Lettuce Salad with a Chilli-Chocolate Dressing

Valentine's Day brings with it a whole gamut of giveaways on blogs - mostly chocolate. I even commented yesterday that chocolate has milk and hence is off-limits, in that I don't buy it myself. But if its offered to me for free, I figure its fair game. In that chocolate state of mind, this salad was born. My chocolate was not vegan, but I just used a couple of pieces, so don't have that much of a negative karma.

I've also used elaichi kera (cardomom bananas) that I think are unique to India - They're half the size of a regular banana, but much sweeter and aromatic as compared to regular bananas.

Banana & Lettuce Salad with a Chilli-Chocolate Dressing

Ingredients:

• 1 head of baby/lolo lettuce (approx 4 cups chopped)
• 3 elaichi keras (or regular bananas, if you can't find them)
• 2 pieces of dark chocolate, more for garnish
• 2 teaspoons chilli flakes
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

To make:
Peel and chop your bananas into 1/2 inch round discs, and your lettuce fairly finely.

Using a knife, chop shards of chocolate - not too fine. Preferably, have your chocolate in the refrigerator beforehand, so its easy to cut and doesn't go all soft in the salad.

Combine the vinegar, olive oil, and chilli flakes in a bowl.

Add the chocolate pieces to the dressing.

Pour the dressing over the salad.

Garnish with leftover chocolate shards.

 Serve immediately or the banana will start to get mushy or smelly.