Currently viewing the tag: "salad"
Here is my take on a classic. The vinegar would usually be something like white or red wine vinegar. I go with white balsamic here because I like the sweetness and clear flavor.
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Use this to dress things like a slaw of sliced Romaine and raw turnips and red onions, or a salad of sturdy lettuces and spicy greens like mustard and arugula.
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This recipe is for a salad that is used as a topping for breaded chops. The contrast between the hot crisp chop and the cool salad with its peppery bite and slight acid from tomatoes and vinaigrette makes for a wonderful dish. This salad is also excellent on its own, or as a topping for bruschetta.
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This is a favorite dressing, and has been for years. Use good quality vinegar, but save your best stuff for other uses. This dressing is good on any salad, and goes well with fruit salad, too. You can also heat it up and pour it over sliced mushrooms. This will cook the mushrooms and give them a “pickled” flavor, and they keep well for several days in the refrigerator. They are good in salad and make a nice topping for grilled meat or poultry.
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This dressing is for a German style potato salad, but works well as a dressing for lettuces as well. The fennel takes it into a Mediterranean direction, so if you want a true German style dressing eliminate the fennel and go with some caraway instead, but go lightly with that. Caraway can easily take over a dish. This recipe makes more than enough dressing for the potato salad recipe, but better more than not enough. If you just want the dressing for a salad, halve the recipe. Toasting the fennel seeds in this recipe give them a sweeter, drier flavor. Untoasted, the seeds are stronger and have a more licorice-like flavor. Using half and half will add another layer to the flavors. You could also use this recipe for a slaw with cabbage, carrots, and fennel.
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This dressing was originally for blanched and chilled haricot vert. It goes well on things like shredded beets, cooked or raw. If you use these on red beets, the dressing will take on a lovely magenta color.
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Here is a hearty salad with lots of bold flavors in it, all linked together by a dressing thickened with berry jam. The salad features ingredients that are similar in how they all have a little hit of bitter or sharp to spark the tongue, and then they contrast in textures (soft lettuces and blue cheese, crunchy almonds and lettuces, chewy raisins) all robed in a silky dressing that is sweet and tart. I like this salad for a main course, especially if there is some leftover roast or poached chicken to shred and mix in.
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There are a few variations of this dressing, and many stories as to its origin. The story that is generally accepted in the restaurant world is that Caesar Cardini invented the recipe “on the fly” once when the restaurant was packed and he was out of some ingredients. A quick scan of the pantry gave these ingredients along with the salad base, and then he prepared the salad at tableside for flair. Cardini family legend has it that Caesar did not put in anchovy as he didn’t like them. Supposedly these were added later by a relative. The salad traditionally is made with smaller whole leaves from closer to the center of the head, and the leaves were picked up or cut with knife and fork. I make the dressing without egg yolk because I am lazy. You can also substitute mayonnaise for the egg yolk. Yolk or mayo really do give you a much richer dressing that coats the leaves beautifully, but the flavor is still quite good without them. You will need to use more olive oil to get the right emulsification of the dressing instead.
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Caesar Salad
Quite popular in its original form, the Caesar Salad has enjoyed a renaissance that has lasted for over the last decade and then some. The salad has become a vehicle for everything from chicken to seafood to beef. There have been some versions that shared little with the original but the name and Romaine lettuce. Here is the stripped down version close to the original. The salad was supposedly first concocted from things Caesar Cardini had on hand at his restaurant when he was faced with a large party and was out of many ingredients. It was prepared tableside with much flair.
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To me, “white balsamic vinegar” is a bit of a misnomer as one of the things that give balsamic vinegar its particular flavor is the succession of barrels it goes through over time. The white balsamic version is lighter and subtler than regular balsamic vinegars, and makes a nice dressing or sauce for when you want to complement more delicate flavors.
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This recipe comes from my sushi bar days. This is based on the frugality typical of Japanese Buddhist cuisine. We used a lot of spinach and had a lot of stems sitting around. I had seen a recipe where the “root crowns”-the cluster of stems that gather into the root at the end of the bunch- were blanched and dressed and served as a little side dish. We served these as a little gift from the chef when people first sat down. The hardest part of this recipe is cleaning the crowns. Lots of water is the trick here. You won’t get a lot of these from a bunch, but they are worth doing as the take little time and are very good.
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Sometimes I just get in the mood for something from my childhood, and when it comes to salads, this does it. This is based on a taste memory of the Thousand Island dressing from the now defunct Marshall Field’s Department store in Chicago. This dressing is great on turkey sandwiches or salads with lots of chunky veggies in it.
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Vinaigrettes are usually thought of as oil and vinegar dressing. In actuality, vinaigrettes can be used as a sauce, especially for fish and poultry, on sandwiches, as a marinade, or even as a pasta sauce. Vinaigrettes are great poured over roasted vegetables such as potatoes, parsnips, and beets, while still warm so the flavors are absorbed. This makes an excellent salad, and is, in fact, how German potato salad is made.
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I was in the mood for salad, but wanted something a little creamer than the usual vinaigrette. I also wanted something a little light as I was dressing baby greens. My Meyer lemon tree had just given me an abundance of fruit also, so all these things were playing in my mind as I opened the refrigerator. Here is the result.
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Here is a “suite” of dressings that all turn on one basic dressing called “amazu”. Amazu is the dressing you get on your basic sunomono, or cucumber salad at Japanese restaurants. The rest are just variations on a theme. When it comes to oil, I keep it very light. Instead of the basic 3:1 ratio of vinaigrette, if I use oil with this dressing I go very lightly, making what is sometimes called a “slack” in restaurants. The idea is to use just enough to help the flavors stick to the food. Usually, this is something like a 1:1 ratio.
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This is a fancy appetizer I did for a party once, but it is so good it keeps showing up. Although I like the stacked presentation a lot, this salad works equally well when simply tossed in a bowl and then put onto plates. Also, since I like it so well, the 3 inch diameter salad isn’t always large enough.
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This is a variant of an old standby around here, and is similar to what you get when you order Chinese Chicken salad. The dressing is good for many things-try it on sliced cucumbers. You can add things to this slaw to fancy it up easily; try chopped dates and peanuts, or raisins or green onions.
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This is a brightly flavored “salad” that tastes fresh and is colorful as well. A little more substantial than a green salad, it works as a side dish on the plate. You could even sauté the carrots lightly in the dressing, tossing the herbs in right at service.
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