No worries this post is not about what to wear, it’s about making the perfect salad sauce. Generally I refer to salad sauces as vinaigrettes given its name by the main flavoring ingredients e.g. garlic vinaigrette, herb vinaigrette. In cooking school we were taught that a basic oil to vinegar ratio in a vinaigrette should be 3:1 that generally works but for the contemporary diner this can feel heavy and taste excessively oily (and I think we have all had enough excess oil in our lives lately with BP’s massive spill in the Gulf!). Salad is a Summer staple for everyone, even steak eating men eat salad in the Summer … if it’s well dressed! But you don’t want to overpower and ruin those great Summer greens with a blah salad or one that is a tad too vinegary. Salad dressing is such a small but significant part of the summer dinner table!
(jumbo white asparagus, endive and mountain chive with red wine vinaigrette)
…The Basic Structure…
Mix salt with the “liquidy” part of your salad dressing such as diverse vinegars or citrus juices so that they dissolve easily. To combine vinegar with the oil there should be an
emulsifying agent such as mustard and/or egg yolk otherwise a salad sauce will naturally separate into two layers (it has to do with the specific weight of oil and vinegar). A few grindings of fresh pepper from the mill or a touch of cayenne adds some kick to your vinaigrette and you’re good to go!
Other options besides these basic ingredients are blue cheese, yoghurt or many other soft-spreadable cheeses will add flavor and combine or even substitute oil and vinegar in a salad sauce.
(hearts of palm with Manchego cheese and herb/arugula vinaigrette)
Coming on too strong
I’m not a big fan of adding raw onions and garlic to anything especially dressings. I find them overly strong so I always boil garlic and onions for about 30-seconds in water to take off their pungent / strong flavor and then add it to my salad sauce.
The Latin of labels
If the summer heat makes you lazy and you decide to buy a salad sauce from the supermarket shelf – then at least read the label. commercially speaking you’ll find Latin words such as lecithin, xanthum gum, carrageenan which are all thickening agents and are helping to combine the diverse ingredients to make a shelved salad sauce stable or in another world pretty for the consumer’s eye. These ingredients are not unhealthy but now you know why they are in a commercial dressing.
(butter lettuce with baby shrimp, diced apples, carrots, and celery with mustard vinaigrette)
Summery Mustard Vinaigrette
recipe yields about 1 cup
1 tablespoon warm water
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
¼ teaspoon honey
½ teaspoon sea salt
½ teaspoon grainy Dijon mustard
4 grindings black pepper
2 tablespoon canola oil
2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1. In a mixing bowl combine water, rice vinegar, honey, sea salt, mustard and black pepper then mix with a wire whisk (this will dissolve the salt in the mixture).
2. Poor oils in a stream slowly into the vinegar mixture (constantly mixing with whisk).
Chef’s Vinaigrette Tricks
O add freshly chopped herbs to your salad instead of adding it to the vinaigrette in this way the herbs will retain their vital flavor
O boil sliced garlic and/or onions for thirty seconds in water then add to vinaigrette this will make your salad sauce shelve stable for several days.
O mash avocado in a bowl then mix with basic vinaigrette by slowly combining it with a wire whisk
O put your bowl on a kitchen towel when mixing your salad sauce this will make it more stable, and you can add ingredients with the other hand
