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| Image from shapefoods.com |
Bear with me here, I'm gonna ramble a lot.
Rather than giving you just one recipe, I'm gonna give you some salad tips and guidelines to help you make a salad that almost anyone will love. Well, ok, there may be a recipe or two...
Salads have a bad rep. They do! Many people, especially younger, ignorant people simply look at salads as diet/hippie food designed to provide palatable nourishment without any tastiness. That's just crap.
A salad is a great way to eat healthy while still enjoying tasty chow (and not all salads are healthy. ie. Taco Salad). The fact is that you can only cram so many flavors onto your steak or chicken, whereas the never-ending mixture of ingredients in a salad can provide layers of exciting taste sensations, textures and general awesomeness that your standard entree just can't match. That, and a nice light salad is the best accompaniment to your heavy main course, making sure that you and your guests don't feel like beached whales after dinner.
Typically you'll find online a lot of folks talking about Summer or Winter Salads. That refers to seasonally available vegetables. I won't go into that too much, but if you are online looking for recipes you now know what they mean. But really, in today's day and age you can find darn near any ingredient at darn near anytime, you just may have to pay a few bucks more. Having said that, however, I cannot stress just how fantastic fresh, locally grown produce really is. You owe it to yourself to hit your local Farmer's Market and get some affordable, fresh veggies.
I'm gonna focus on leafy greens for the purpose of our discussion, as opposed to a beans salad or a quinoa salad, etc.
Leafy greens are a vital part of our diet that many of us just don't get enough of. Here's an incentive to eat more leafy greens: get rid of chronic heartburn. Forget the prescriptions and endless amounts of pharmaceuticals: eat spinach. I had for well over 5 years chronic heartburn, mainly brought on by stress. I ate PepcidAC like they were TicTacs; tried Nexium, "The Purple Pill," and all kinds of other crap. Then I read about how spinach might help. So I started putting spinach into everything I ate (you can sneak spinach in practically anywhere and people won't know) and within a month my heartburn was gone. In the ensuing years I've gotten lazy with the greens a few times, leading to the return of the heartburn. An influx of spinach and the pain is gone within two days! So there, eat your spinach!
Onwards to Salad Basics!
1. Get some greens! Whatever you're comfortable to start with. Everyone knows romaine and leaf lettuce, so they're a safe place to start. But why not try something different? You can get all kinds of crazy salad mixes in the grocery store nowadays. We usually like to get a Spinach/Baby Greens mix, as it is fairly neutral in taste and has some nice crunch. I'd mentioned in a previous post Arugula, which has a bit of nuttiness to it, as another excellent green to try out. Other options you may like to try might be kale or chard. At any rate, get yourself some greens to start with.
2. Get some veggies! Ok, you got greens, now get some veg. Here's where a little bit of forethought and planning can help you out. Generally speaking you want all your flavors to work together, without any one overpowering another. Usually this means avoiding stuff like raw onions as they will overpower every mouthful you eat - if you need something onion-y get some shallots or chives. Go easy with the garlic as well, you can always add some in later if you want, but once you go too far with the garlic there's no turning back. Here's a handy list of veg to consider: sliced mushrooms, red pepper (raw or roasted), chives, tomatoes (yes, I know tomatoes are technically fruits, thanks), celery, sliced radish, bean sprouts, baby corn, etc
Use your own imaginations as well. Darn near anything can go on a salad, so experiment to see what works for your palette.
3. Extras are fun! Within reason you can add all kinds of yummy stuff onto your salad, but let's you and I try and keep this reasonable, as one goal of this post is to help you reach that svelte shape you are longing after. That also means you should go easy on the croutons. If you feel the need to have croutons try and use whole wheat ones. But, if you are just looking for the crunch, then stick with celery or crack open a can of sliced water chestnuts. Speaking of nuts, most nuts are awesome on a salad, depending on how they jive with your dressing. Toasted pine nuts are just amazing on darn near any salad. Ditto with crushed cashews, walnuts (candied are fun for a sweet vibe) or sliced/slivered almonds.
Other good extras are cheeses. Again, go easy if you want to see your toes ever again. Feta is a great addition to salad as it also adds some saltiness, and blue cheese tends to mix well with the greens and the dressing. Shaved parmesan (Parmigiano Reggiano is the "King of Cheeses") is superb, and if you want to try some different pick up some Crotonese cheese. Crotonese is super strong and you wouldn't be able to handle chewing a hunk of it, but small amounts of shaved (with a sharp knife or a peeler) will really bring a salad screaming to life. Speaking of screaming, I know a lot of people who throw chiles onto their salads. Not my thing, but hey, knock yourself out. Oh, finally, consider adding something sweet to your salad, especially if you are using a vinaigrette. This would include dried fruit, beets, candied nuts, etc. Just go easy, as it is possible to gain weight eating salads.
4. The meat conundrum. Some folks don't feel a meal is complete unless they get a serving of meat. No problem, you can add meat to your salad. You've heard of chicken caesar salad, right? Feel free to add chicken, cubed/sliced beef, bacon, pancetta, prosciutto, etc.
5. Dress it up! Finally, some actual recipes! I have in recent years gone over to the vinaigrette side because they are so darn easy to make and customize to your own palette, so that's what I'm focusing on here. You can make pretty much all of these in advance, in bulk and use em up as needed, although I tend to make my dressing about 10 minutes before we eat. It really is that simple!
The Basic Vinaigrette
It all starts here!
Essentially, your basic vinaigrette is one part acid (vinegar, citrus juice) to 3 or 4 parts oil (EVOO, grapeseed oil, flax oil, canola, etc). You can add other spices and herbs to your taste.
Mix your acid and any herbs/spices together and then whisk in the oil until you are happy with the taste. Done.
So one nice option may be:
1/2 cup Red Wine Vinegar
3/4 cup EVOO
1 tbl salt
1/2 tbl pepper
1/2 tbl smoked paprika (or chipolte if you want a little burn)
Make the above a french vinaigrette by stirring in some dijon mustard
Balsamic Vinaigrette
For 2 large bowls of salad. Not a big fan myself, but I'm sure some of you wouldn't consider my post complete without this basic recipe.
Ingredients
2 tbl Balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup Olive oil
1/2 tbl Salt and pepper
1/4 tsp Sugar (brown or granulated)
1. Pour vinegar into the bottom of the bowl. Add salt pepper and sugar.
2. Begin whisking vigorously, and then drizzle in the olive oil in a slow, thin stream, and whisk rapidly where it hits the vinegar.
3. As your vinaigrette thickens and becomes a paler, stop and taste. You can add more olive oil if it's too acidic. If it separates while you're preparing the rest of dinner, don't worry. Just whisk it again to smooth it out.
My favourite, and the one we use the most often (even just on regular veggies, potatoes or even chicken) is:
Lemon Vinaigrette
Ingredients
3 lemons (or equivalent of juice)
1 cup EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)
1 tbl sea salt / kosher salt ground fine
Juice the lemons into a bowl. Mix in the EVOO and the salt. Tah-dah!
Optionally, consider chucking halved lemons on the grill or in the oven till browned on both sides and you will get a mellower lemon taste. Also optional would be adding a wee bit of minced garlic and a mix of any of the following: thyme, parsley, basil, oregano.
Here's something different I pulled from www.thekitchn.com, a fav cooking website of mine (expect a post on good web cooking resources soon).
Honey Pepper Vinaigrette
makes about 1-1/2 cups
Ingredients
1/4 cup sherry vinegar
2 tablespoons honey, warmed
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 shallot, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 cup of olive oil
1/4 cup finely sliced fresh mint leaves
Combine everything in a jar. Cover with a tight fitting lid and shake vigorously until well combined and creamy. Can be refrigerated for about a week.
For extra recipes check out this great salad resource.
There you have it, some salad basics. I rambled a lot. Sorry. I did warn you, though.
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