Cooks' Books by Lisa Messinger

"Mixt Salads: A Chef's Bold Creations" by Andrew Swallow with Ann Volkwein (10 Speed, $28)

As spring arrives, so do bottomless salad bowls that continually need filling with the fresh treasures of the season. As the weather changes, so do the favorite featured cookbooks on my kitchen's shelves. Andrew Swallow's masterpiece "Mixt Salads" is my favorite salad book.

When Swallow was a 16-year-old working at a sandwich shop in his native New Jersey, he probably never dreamed that he would become the chef who caused "even men," as he says, to wait in line for salads on the streets of San Francisco.

However, after graduating from New York's prestigious Culinary Institute of America and stints at some of the country's best restaurants, like Gramercy Tavern and Gary Danko, Swallow came up with the idea for San Francisco's Mixt Greens. He dubbed it an "eco-gourmet fast-casual option"; it regularly draws lines out the door and has since expanded to multiple locations across the country.

Swallow calls it a "guysy" approach to salads — and clearly one that's been much needed in restaurants and for easy recipes for the home cook, like Swallow provides in his excellent first cookbook.

In this fest — organized, of course, by season — it's standard practice to find lemon cucumbers, fresh lychees and enoki mushrooms peppering a mache and cherry tomato salad or fresh chanterelles and duck eggs seasoned with fresh thyme in a chicory-based dreamboat of a salad he calls "heaven."

It's the best of California fresh produce cuisine, and that's good news for beginning — or less motivated — cooks who like bold results. All it takes is picking the freshest, most innovative ingredients and expertly mixing and matching. With Swallow as your guide, it's almost impossible to go wrong.

The book, like his "fast-casual" hot dining spots, is about a lot more than salads. All kinds of dishes, featuring ultra-healthful greens, are included. Frisee and radicchio are part of a "Donald" duck confit with persimmons and two blue cheeses. Both Napa and green shredded cabbages, as well as watercress, adorn a perfectly marinated (with both teriyaki and red wine) hanger steak served with buckwheat noodles. Chorizo meatballs served with frisee and mache and flanked by julienned dates is a showstopper.

But, then again, so is the chef.

Here are a few of his spring specialties. These two featuring fennel (one is grilled; the other shaved paper-thin with a mandoline) show how Swallow helps you practice to become an expert with fresh, seasonal ingredients.

FAVA BEANS WITH GRILLED FENNEL

1 pound fresh fava beans

2 fennel bulbs

4 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil, plus more for coating

Sea salt, to taste

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

4 (1/4-inch-thick) slices pancetta, cut into lardons (1/2-inch chunks)

Juice of 1 lemon

1 bunch opal basil

1/4 pound mache

Yields 4 servings.

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil on the stove and set the grill to medium heat.

Prepare a large bowl of ice water.

When the water comes to a boil, blanch the fava beans for 30 seconds, and then carefully immediately shock in the ice bath. After the favas have cooled, split the pods open with your fingers and remove the beans. Set aside.

Return the water to a boil, blanch the fennel bulbs for 5 minutes and then shock in the ice water. After the fennel has cooled, slice the bulbs into 1/2-inch pieces. Coat them with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill the fennel for about 5 minutes total, or until nicely charred.

While the fennel is cooking, cook the pancetta until super crispy in a saute pan over medium-high heat, about 5 minutes and set aside.

Place 4 pieces of fennel on each of 4 salad plates. Top each with 1/2-cup fava beans and 1 tablespoon pancetta. Drizzle 1 teaspoon olive oil and 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice over all, then arrange 8 basil leaves and 5 sprigs of mache around the beans. Season with sea salt and pepper and serve.

'NO-FRILLS' MIXED SPRING GREENS WITH SHAVED FENNEL AND GREEN OLIVES

1 fennel bulb

1/2 pound mixed spring greens

1/4 cup chervil leaves

1/2 cup green olives, pitted and sliced

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Sea salt, to taste

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Yields 4 servings.

Cut the top and bottom off the fennel bulb. With a mandoline or a sharp knife, slice the fennel into paper-thin slices.

Place the greens, chervil, olives and fennel in a bowl and toss with the lemon juice and olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

Lisa Messinger is a first-place winner in food writing from the Association of Food Journalists and the author of seven food books, including "Mrs. Cubbison's Best Stuffing Cookbook" and "The Sourdough Bread Bowl Cookbook." She also writes the Creators News Service "After-Work Gourmet" column. To find out more about Lisa Messinger and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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