Sunday, May 18, 2014

i. Salads




Should salads be included in a cookbook? Of course, the answer is a resounding Yes! Cooking is more about preparing a good meal than about heating up ingredients. Half of our daily meals are made of fresh, healthy, and appetizing salads.

Actually, in a salad, there is no way to mask the bad quality of an ingredient and no preparation can be more authentic. A salad complements any meal with a refreshing episode and can even be a meal in itself. 

Salads are also a territory for inspiration and exploration. In your search for new associations of taste and textures, you can combine all kinds of ingredients, soft and crunchy, all kinds of herbs and spices and even leftovers.
In my view, any couple intent on lasting has to share a number of things, including meal preparation. My wife Meredith has always concentrated on salads and desserts, salads being where she allows herself naturally to be the most creative.

She has tried many combinations over the years, gradually focusing on this vinaigrette we use in most circumstances. It starts with good balsamic vinegar and olive oil, the “secret” ingredients being shoyu (Japanese soy sauce) and a pinch of curry. These 2 ingredients blend in naturally, adding sweetness and a nutty flavor.

Our proportions would be the following:

×           1 tbsp. of vinegar
×           1 tbsp. of shoyu
×           Salt, pepper, a pinch of curry
×           5 tbsp. of olive oil

Mix and use immediately.
My father loved to lay down rules and enforce them. One of those was “all salads go with garlic, except butter lettuce which goes with onions”. I still feel these rules make gustatory sense and abiding by them is the least I can do.

For lettuce, I will add some minced onions to the basic salad dressing.
For romaine, endive, frisée, escarole, it will be minced garlic.
For arugula and mizuna, it might be pure dressing most of the time, with some diced peeled ripe tomato thrown in for color and sweet contrast.
Cooked beet salads also demand garlic (and a bit of mustard), unless you use dill as an accompanying herb.
Sliced raw celery is also very refreshing. It also asks for garlic, but prefers lemon to vinegar. So do grated carrots.
All beet roots combine well with dill, with which they share popularity in northern Europe.
If you want to make a visually attractive salad for a guest meal, use beets of different colors. Chiogga beets even display a feat of concentric circles when sliced.

It takes about 20/25 minutes in a gentle boil to cook beets. Probe them with a fork to know when it’s time to stop.
For a change, combine beets with parched pine nuts or roasted almonds.
You could also add a chopped hard-boiled egg into the salad bowl.
You will need:

×           1 lb of cooked chickpeas (see Vegetable section)
×           ½  sweet Mayan onion
×           2 tsp. of cumin
×           Parsley or other favorite herb, fresh tarragon, basil, etc…
×           Meredith’s vinaigrette (see above)

Prepare a vinaigrette, add the cumin.
Chop the onion.
Throw in the ingredients and let sit and permeate for 5/10 minutes.
Add chopped parsley and serve.
Similar to the chickpea salad, with pot-au-feu meat leftovers, cut in ½ inch pieces, instead.
You can also use meat and chick peas: it all marries very well.
This combination, born in the south of France, provides a meal in itself. Therefore, it has travelled very far and sometimes pretty well. It is based on the combination of the following:

×           ¼ sweet onion
×           ½ sweet pepper, green or red
×           ½ lettuce
×           2-3 tomatoes
×           1 or 2 hard-boiled eggs cut in 4
×           ½ cup Niçoise olives
×           4-5 oil-preserved anchovies
×           Meredith’s vinaigrette (see above)

In this versatile salad, the core taste comes from peppers, tomatoes, eggs, and anchovies. However, everything can be changed according to availability or taste. Small “Niçoise” black olives can be replaced by larger green ones. Although it is based on uncooked vegetables, many people will add steamed potatoes, cooked string beans or tuna leftovers.
Ordering this mythical salad in an American restaurant is a sure way to test not so much the authenticity of the recipe but the quality of the chef’s approach to cooking. At home, it could serve as an excellent appetizer in a festive meal, but it might take a lot of your time just when you want to be with your guests. It is better to practice making it as the only family lunch dish until you can make it easily and without stress.

You will need:

×           1 romaine lettuce (leave the outer green leaves out)
×           4 anchovies fillets conserved in oil
×           1 tsp Dijon mustard
×           1 egg
×           1 clove of garlic
×           Juice of ½ lemon
×           ¼ cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
×           Olive oil, salt and pepper
×           Fresh croutons, made from baguette slices for example.

Prepare the croutons first:
Cut some baguette slices.
Spread them on a pan over low heat.
When they have started to firm up, rub them with the garlic clove, cut them in ½ inch pieces.
Put back in the pan with a ribbon of olive oil and some salt.
They should be perfectly appetizing within 10 minutes.

The salad dressing is an emulsion:
Mince the garlic clove and the anchovies as finely as you can.
Put in the bowl, with the mustard, salt, pepper, the lemon juice and whisk actively.
Add now the egg, either raw or “heated” for 50 seconds in boiling water. Whisk actively.
Pour the oil slowly and regularly while stirring constantly so that the dressing emulsifies properly.

It’s time now to dress the salad:
Add the romaine leaves, hand torn in manageable pieces.
Toss, or better yet mix with clean hands to ensure proper coating.
Add the parmesan cheese, the croutons, and toss again. Serve immediately.

Oops! I forgot to use the customary Worcestershire sauce and it is still good!
This refreshing salad just uses finely chopped parsley as its green component, instead of lettuce or arugula. It is inspired from the original Lebanese tabouleh, a version of tabouleh where bulgur practically disappears, replaced by lots of parsley and fresh mint.

It will be good whichever way you finish it. Make a vinaigrette with lemon instead of vinegar, add 2 tbsp. of finely diced sweet onions in the dressing and sprinkle with a diced tomato. Spread out for taste and visual delight. Just add chopped mint and some grains of steamed bulgur, and you are back to the authentic Lebanese tabouleh.
This salad was born in Italy’s south, and adapted the world over in different disappointing renditions. Its secret to greatness is to use only the best ingredients you can find:

×           4 to 5 vine-ripened heirloom tomatoes
×           Mozzarella di bufala (only this original production made from water buffalo milk will do)
×           Fresh basil
×           Olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper

Peel the outer skin, which should be easy if the tomato is very ripe. (1)
Slice them, trying to eliminate a few seeds while maintaining a good visual appearance. Set out on a large plate.
Sprinkle with salt, pepper, vinegar (in a controlled way).   
Place on each slice a piece of mozzarella (cut up with your fingers and not a knife) and a piece of basil. Doing it this way takes extra time, but this time is well spent for your future enjoyment.
Pour a ribbon of olive oil on top. Admire. Serve.




In the summertime, our French garden produces more tomatoes that we can ever eat! We never tire of them, trying to blind taste the differences between Black Russian and Pineapple, Yellow Belgian or Green Zebra. And we accommodate them with simple dressings, or even no dressing at all, treating them as the delicious fruit they are.

One ritual stays the same: we always peel them, slice them into thick slices and spread them over a large plate. What changes is the topping. Our local sweet onion, sometimes helped by a fragrant garden sweet pepper, is a favorite.
You will need:

×           2 lbs of potatoes
×           3 fennel (anise) heads
×           Fresh tarragon
×           Meredith’s vinaigrette (see above)

Clean potatoes thoroughly and cut into ½ inch pieces.
New potatoes with thin skin do not need to be peeled.
Steam your potatoes for about 10/15 minutes until done. Keep warm.
Meanwhile, clean the fennel heads, cut in 2 and carve out the hard bottom part. Cut into 1/8 inch thick slices.
Prepare a vinaigrette, throw in the ingredients and serve. Add tarragon to taste.

Et voilà! Appreciate now the heavenly contrast between warm mild potatoes and crunchy fragrant fennel! (2)
Some arugula, our favorite leaf, some ripe tomato and onion dices for color, 4 or 5 chopped anchovy fillets for the dark side, and the usual dressing.
Crab or shrimp go well with mayonnaise (see Shellfish and Egg section) and go well with grapefruit (sweet Oro Blanco or Cocktail varieties for example). That combination is easy to make and enjoy. I would add some tomato sauce and a bit of Angostura sauce or the like to give it a bite. If not available, I would borrow a tablespoon of ketchup from my neighbors. They will never believe it!
There are two main ingredients: fresh spinach and “mi-cuit” foie gras, meaning freshly cooked rather than coming out of a can. Just spread 4 or 5 appetizing leaves of raw spinach on a plate and the slice of foie gras on top.

Vinaigrette won’t do. I would recommend making a festive dressing by sautéing shallot and ginger, adding a bit of cognac and white wine, and reducing to 1 or 2 tbsp. The final dressing would be made of that reduction, plus 1 tsp. vinegar, 3 tbsp. olive oil, 1 drop sesame oil, salt and pepper. Sprinkle only the spinach with it.
This variation on the previous salad, even more festive, assembles ingredients which are not usually in season at the same time. Locavores will have to make some exception to their rules. In any case, if it is indeed consumed on New Year’s Eve, they can make a new year’s resolution the next day. The idea is to marry different flavors, different ingredients coming from different parts of the world artistically arranged into individual plates. For example, this symphony of sweet and bitter:

×           2 candied kumquats
×           1 piece of candied red pepper (see Vegetables)
×           1 green asparagus (barely cooked, still crunchy)
×           3 or 4 leaves of raw spinach
×           1 slice of duck foie gras (let’s say the next best thing you can find locally, in the same spirit)

The salad dressing could be the same as in the preceding recipe. You can candy kumquats by simmering them for an hour in a sugar syrup. The hardest part in the US will be to find that slice of duck foie gras. You may have to settle for less, either a can or jar of preserved foie gras or some well-made pâté. You may also maintain the festive spirit by switching to fresh Dungeness crab meat.
Clean some leeks (see Vegetable section) and steam them for 10 minutes.
Cut each leek in 2 or 3 and lay these pieces down on a small white plate.
Pour 2 to 3 tbsp vinaigrette on top. 

Eat while it is slightly warm. Chew well. Isn’t this divine?




(1)    Many American guests, afraid of losing the precious vitamins which they think reside in any fruit or vegetable’s skin, will wonder. Why peel tomatoes? French Cartesian chefs offer a host of bad reasons for so doing which have not withstood any scientific test. My reason is only that it is more refined. I peel these fragrant tomatoes because I find that feeling the skin on my tongue intrudes on my immediate gustatory experience. If tomatoes are not good, I do not care so much about peeling them.
(2)    If you prepare a simple fennel salad, without potatoes, you should forego the vinaigrette for a mix of lemon and mustard. Isn’t life amazingly complex?

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