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Salad!


Kent Wang

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I've just started getting into making salads so I thought a perpetual thread, like the Dinner! thread for salads would give me inspiration and see what other people are making.

Greens: pre-made mix: baby lettuce, endive, arugula, mizuna, chard

Extras: avocado, goat cheese

Vinaigrette: black fig vinegar, shallot, EVOO

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Do you use pre-mixed greens or do you assemble the mix yourself? Is it feasible to do this at home, cooking for one?

Looking around at salad recipes, I've found that you can toss nearly anything into a salad! Do you just prefer to put in whatever you like or go with a theme?

What exactly qualifies as a salad? Can it be nearly any tossed dish with some greens in it? I made this dish last week. Copied from Vespaio, a local Italian restaurant. Haricots verts, Tregole cheese, soppressata.

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I like those premixed kinds that our Central Market sells, the baby romaine mix in particular. They seem to stay fresh forever! Never have gotten into buying all the lettuces separately and making it from there: when only making it for two people it just seems that they go bad before you can get through them.

With cold weather here, we're not doing too many salads as meals, though once the New Year kicks off and the long planned-for diet begins, my wife will probably start making alot of salads for our lunches. I'll be posting those.

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This time of year, my salad add-ins become fruit-based, for the most part. Yesterday, I made a salad with romaine, orange sections, dried cranberries, toasted walnuts, and bleu cheese. The vinaigrette was made with sherry vinegar and juice from the oranges, orange zest, and the usual other stuff. Oops, I just realized I forgot to include a little walnut oil, which I usually use for a salad with walnuts.

~ Lori in PA

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"Cooking is not a chore, it is a joy."

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For salad dressing one tablespoon each of oil, vinegar and Kikkoman soy sauce.

Finley cut up endive and chicory go in with the dressing and let sit for 30 minutes to "cook" them. Then I add the other cut vegetables such as onion, tomatoe, cucumber, celery. Sometimes I add green olives from a jar with some of the water.

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Let me wax rhapsodic and visit retro salads for a moment:

One of my favorites has always been chopped salads ... :wink:

and, of course, the iceberg that sunk the Titanic dressed in heavy bleu cheese dressing ... :rolleyes:

and, since I am focused upon retro at the moment, there is the old, old favorite, Waldorf salads .. so nice for the autumn of the year ...

but, here we are mere days away from 2006 and I will take some photos of my very recent salads and post them here in this thread .... just had to indulge in a bit of auld lang salad syne ....

Melissa Goodman aka "Gifted Gourmet"

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What exactly are we talking about with salads here? I generally think of the definition of salad including a lighter green vegetable base with some add ins, if neccessary, but i don't know if i would consider something weird like jello salad or different like pasta salad a salad in this sense of the word. . .

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What exactly are we talking about with salads here?  I generally think of the definition of salad including a lighter green vegetable base with some add ins, if neccessary, but i don't know if i would consider something weird like jello salad or different like pasta salad a salad in this sense of the word. . .

That's just saladist....nothing says 'salad' like a big jiggly mass of lime jello, green peas and cottage cheese on a lettuce leaf. :laugh: Unless of course it's orange jelly with crushed pineapple and grated carrots...now THAT is a salad!! :wub:

Don't try to win over the haters. You're not the jackass whisperer."

Scott Stratten

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What exactly are we talking about with salads here?  I generally think of the definition of salad including a lighter green vegetable base with some add ins, if neccessary, but i don't know if i would consider something weird like jello salad or different like pasta salad a salad in this sense of the word. . .

That's just saladist....nothing says 'salad' like a big jiggly mass of lime jello, green peas and cottage cheese on a lettuce leaf. :laugh: Unless of course it's orange jelly with crushed pineapple and grated carrots...now THAT is a salad!! :wub:

you are of course forgetting canned fruit with coconut grated on top and marshmallows, all sculpted by a rather large ice cream scoop into a ball resembling epcot center. :blink:

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Here is a salad I made today for some clients. I got the recipe from a fellow food blogger who got it from epicurious. This is granny smith, celery and toasted walnuts in a dijon lemon dressing.

Let me channel Giada for a moment. " This salad is crunchy and fruity and fresh and tangy".

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I didn't think I liked salads with fruit in them, until I had one at Thanksgiving, and am now hooked. Lots of mixed greens, sliced fresh strawberries, blueberries, diced dried apricots, slivered almonds or walnuts, tomatoes, lots of crumbled goat cheese, and this dressing, which is amazing, and pulls it all together.

Equal amounts of real maple syrup, balsamic vinegar, and extra virgin olive oil, blend until well emulsified, and drizzle over salad.

:biggrin: Pam

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Dylan, my four-year-old, made the salad last night! She cut up a cucumber, red pepper and a chunk of feta with a grapefruit knife (serrated, but not too sharp, no point), and then helped me toss it with leftover, homemade Greek dressing from the other night (lemon, dill, garlic, salt, dijon, EVOO).

Danielle Altshuler Wiley

a.k.a. Foodmomiac

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Last week and this, I've made salad with chunks of carrot, celery, red pepper, cauliflower, cucumber, grape tomatoes... and whatever else, and tossed with a dressing of red wine vinegar, olive oil, a tiny bit of sugar, Italian seasoning, and S&P. No greens of any kind, just chunks of various fresh vegetables. It's now a mainstay in my collection, as a way to use up fresh vegetables when I have small leftover quantities. Really good.* And beats the heck out of taking a ziploc bag of carrot and celery sticks to work!

*Don't tell anybody, but it's a Rachael Ray recipe. :blink:

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Butter lettuce, finely chopped tomatoes, sliced avocado, and pomegranate seeds/arils (what the hell are they called again)? The dressing was a little dijon, some balsamic/fig/onion sauce, some red wine vinegar and EVOO.

It was just something I threw together at the last minute from what I had in the fridge, and it tasted great.

I love butter lettuce, sliced avocado, and ruby red grapefruit sections, tossed with a dijon vinaigrette. But I didn't have any grapefruit on hand.

I don't mind the rat race, but I'd like more cheese.

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We made a beet/orange/red onion salad from the Crescent Dragonwagon cookbook as part of a vegetarian dinner last weekend. The beet was roasted and sliced, the orange and red onion sliced, and arranged on a red lettuce leaf and augmented with mesclun. The dressing was a mango vinaigrette with fine-chopped banana (!) added at the last minute. Sounded strange but looked and tasted great.

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I don't have a picture (lovely pictures everyone, healthy food porn!!!)

But I've doing different combos with pomegranets, nuts and cheese. I think my fav so far is toasted pine nuts with goat feta, along with the ruby jewels and a mix of red lettuce and spinach. Yum!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Greek salad

Greens: pre-made mix: baby lettuce, endive, arugula, mizuna, chard

Extras: feta, marinated roasted tomatoes

Vinaigrette: champagne vinegar, dijon mustard, shallot, EVOO

Wine: Messina Hof (Bryan, TX) Chardonnay Private Reserve 2003

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  • 4 weeks later...

The store I regularly shop at is getting in some new and exotic ingredients. I discovered a can of octopus in oil from Spain, so I made a salad with romaine, red peppers, avocado, and the octopus. The secret ingredient is a condiment I am addicted to called "The Original Goddess Dressing" from Annie's Naturals. I put it on all sorts of vegetables. A girlfriend of mine hates it, but I adore it! It's not the "Green Goddess"--I'm not fond of that one. I squeezed some fresh lemon juice on top of the whole thing and for a winter salad, I thought it was pretty good.

Zuke

"I used to be Snow White, but I drifted."

--Mae West

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Does anyone have any good salad dressing recipes? And I mean recipes... I'm a little clueless when it comes to proportions! I've been trying to make salad dressings more often so my boyfriend won't eat ranch dressing on everything, :wacko: but I haven't been that successful. Last night, I made a dressing of white wine vinegar, olive oil, garlic, s & p, and a little bit of mustard. It was a little too tart for me, so I added some honey, but it didn't make that big of difference. The dressing was okay, but not fantastic. I always have good salad dressings in restaurants... what do they use? It always seems simple... maybe just really good balsamic and olive oil? Maybe I just didn't like the white wine vinegar? But, I tried a dressing with balsamic vinegar last week, and it was even worse! Ideas?

"Many people believe the names of In 'n Out and Steak 'n Shake perfectly describe the contrast in bedroom techniques between the coast and the heartland." ~Roger Ebert

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nicoise.jpg

Nicoise salad. Forgot to put the egg on it, didn't miss it, it was so good. Joy of Cooking recipe adaptation for the french potato salad. White wine/tarragon/dijon/olive oil dressing. JoC proportions again, roughly. Leftover good seasons italian vinegaratte on the blanched and shocked haricots.

Edited by pork (log)
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