I was glad to see our virtuoso local chef Chui Lee Luk single out salad burnet the other night as one of her favourites. It’s an excellent plant for a sunny balcony, as it’s happy in a pot, very hardy, available to pick all year, and hard to find in the shops. The leaves are very pretty and have a cucumber aroma, with maybe a little coriander leaf in there too. Only pick the young leaves while they are the paler green, as the older leaves get tough. I think of it as a salad green rather than a herb.
It’s Sanguisorba minor, although I doubt there is any ambiguity with the common name. I got mine as seed, and it both self-sows and divides, and is a long-lived perennial. As it tends to do too well, it can be cut right back before spring to get rid of the tangled old growth.
