Friday, July 25, 2008

Salad Days


I have kind of a strange relationship with salads. As a kid, my parents always made fun of me because I hate fruit salads because I find them “confusing”. I still feel this way! All of the juices blend together and it just ends up as one big soupy sweet mess. If I want a soupy sweet mess, it’d better involve chocolate. I’m just saying.

I’m also not especially into the “salad as meal” types of salad. I mean- a chefs salad can be great sometimes, but that’s just a bunch of cold cuts and iceberg lettuce (I love iceberg lettuce in all of its non-nutritional glory). Also the salads with lots of bits of dried fruits and nuts and thingamabobbers gross me out. Especially when the salad is overdressed- it just becomes kind of a soggy pile.


The salads I love are the simple ones that focus on the greens. I have recently discovered that my favorite salad green is arugula. It is just so manageable and crisp and has a natural spicy taste. It goes so beautifully with a simple salad dressing. I also like this salad with a nice frisse but this is a bit controversial (some people find it too “pokey”). Here is my default salad-

-Take a big bowl

-Add some shredded or chopped garlic to the bowl- what I do is take one clove and grind it against the tines of a fork. Easy! And you don’t have to muss up a cutting board!

-Add a nice dollop of good Dijon mustard.

-Add a splash (or more to your taste) of good red wine vinegar- mush everything up with the fork

-Salt and pepper to taste

-Add some good olive oil and mix a bit- don’t worry about forming an emulsion.

-Add the appropriate amount of greens and toss!

You can add other things if you want, but try and keep it simple. Also, there are so many varieties of salad dressings that you can easily make (see http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/perfect-salad-dressings>this> for more examples).

And if it’s mid summer (which it is) and you have fresh English peas available (if you are lucky!) then you should make this salad because it rules.