Mâche and Mango Salad

You will also need a salad spinner or cotton dish towels for drying the lettuce leaves, a small bowl, a small whisk, and a garlic press if you have one.

Note about storing mâche and keeping it fresh:
If you have the option of buying mâche in whole rosettes with the leaves still attached together by the root and not prewashed, happily take it. Once plucked and washed, the leaves become fragile. Mâche will stay fresh in the refrigerator for a week or even a little longer if the whole rosettes are stored in a container lined with paper toweling, covered lightly with another sheet of towel and the whole wrapped in plastic or sealed with a lid. Pluck them apart and wash the leaves when ready to use them in a salad.

For the vinaigrette:
1. At least 30 minutes before serving the salad, put the oil and rice vinegar in a small bowl, add the sugar and whisk to dissolve it.
2. Add the cayenne, garlic, and salt. Let the vinaigrette stand at room temperature for 30 minutes or longer to develop the flavors and to give the sugar time to completely dissolve.

To assemble the salads:
1. If using whole rosettes of mâche, pluck the individual leaves apart. Wash the leaves well, refresh them in a bowl of ice water, and dry them in a salad spinner or on cotton towels. If the salad isn’t being made and served right away, spread the leaves out on cotton dish towels, roll them up in the towels and put them in the refrigerator. The leaves will stay fresh for several hours.
2. On each salad plate, arrange a loose bed of mâche leaves (about 1 cup for each person). Sprinkle cubes of mango and cucumber round about over the leaves.
2. With a large spoon, dribble vinaigrette over each salad and, if you like, sprinkle each salad with some pink peppercorns.