UPDATE TO THE SALAD UPDATE
DAILY POST JAN 7:Â SALAD MANIFESTO, JAN 17: SALAD UPDATE
Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon. . . . ~Harriet Van Horne (1920-1998)
Just had another thought on the salad. Not that a tossed salad will get you into the Encyclopedia Britannica or anything, but it is on the one hand quintessentially versatile, complementing almost any meal while on the other hand being ordinary (in the everyday sense). So how to distinguish a salad, raising it above ordinarily good? The answer: distinctive ingredients. That you have bothered to cook dinner for someone puts you in a class above most. That you are making a tossed salad from the seasonal garden gives you another half-dozen points. If you want to ratchet it up even more, find new and interesting things at the green market to throw in. Just a few that come to mind:
SHITAKE MUSHROOM – If you’re looking for a more mushroom-y tasting fungus among us, try this woody, deeply flavored one. Use just the cap – a little more flamboyant than the white buttons we’re all used to – and save the stems for cooking with rice and thyme (coming soon).
WATERMELON RADISH – Even if you’re not crazy about radishes, these beauties are impressive in that they look (when cut) like miniature watermelon slices. Spicy and crunchy, they will have people oooing this unique addition. Larger than red radishes, these aren’t much to look at on the outside (they rather look like turnips). But the deep pink ringed with white and green will make you glad you took the time to bring them home.
NEW, OR ADDITIONAL, GREENS Instead of romaine, red or green leaf lettuce (and please, please, please not iceberg!) try a new leaf. Boston lettuce is very soft and appealing, and I’ve seen it red as well as the usual light green. You could get mesclun, a mix of seven or eight different leaves, both sweet and bitter. Or baby spinach. I don’t recommend mature spinach – unless you’re making a spinach salad – because the leaves can be tougher than lettuce, which is why a hot dressing (temperature-wise) is commonly used for spinach salad. Add some arugula or basil (not to be confused with the dried herb) leaves. Radicchio is a tightly-compacted leaf that looks like a purple and white cabbage; it is a little bitter. Endive is a little on the bitter side as well, and comes in small heads.
SWEET BELL PEPPER – Instead of using a green pepper, use a red one (especially if good tomatoes are elusive during the winter) or, better yet, yellow or orange. The flavor is much sweeter than the green, lacking that very distinctive green pepper flavor that is the most common. Green pepper in a tossed salad is nothing to look at. Turn on the lights in your salad, selecting candidates for their color appeal. How many different colors can you find?
