Avocado Salad with Cumin and Pepitas

I recently bought the most beautiful new cookbook by Ashley Rodriguez – she’s a former chef in the US who has the award winning blog ‘Not Without Salt’.  The book is called ‘Date Night In’ and it’s packed full of decadent feasts to share with your significant other, designed to get the juices flowing and reinvigorate relationships (wink wink).  Some of it is a bit complicated, suited for weekends or when you have some time on your hands (?) but, there are so many good dishes to take away from this one, each page I turned was another beautiful idea, I reckon this and Karen Martini’s new book will have me set for 2015.  I made this salad to go with some tempura’d fish and seafood as a family NYE dinner.  I think it’s probably better suited to accompany chicken or meat, or pulled pork tacos as Ashley suggests, but it was just so delicious I will be pairing it with many a meal this summer.  Such simple ingredients, but with the toasted cumin seeds and pepitas, it is full of flavour.  I get unreasonably excited when I find a new recipe like this that’s both delicious and easy – woohoo!

Ingredients

1 large avocado, sliced thinly (I used 2 medium size)

2 cups of mixed herbs (basil, coriander, mint, dill or chives, whatever you can get your hands on), chopped

⅓ small red onion, finely diced

½ tsp cumin seeds, toasted

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

½ tsp salt flakes

3 tbsp pepitas, toasted

½ a lime (I used lemon)

Method

Place 1 cup of herbs on a serving platter.  Top with half of the sliced avocado, half of the red onion, half the cumin seeds, some olive oil, a sprinkle of salt, half the pepitas and a squeeze of lime.  Add another layer in the same way.  Serve immediately.