Salad Dressings

Summer, winter, spring or fall, salad is always on our menus. So what about the dressings for the salad?

 

Most people buy their salad dressings at the supermarket in a bottle. There are literally hundreds of options at the grocery store. Some are on a shelf in an aisle and some in the refrigerator section. Of course, now there are some in an organic section. Many of the major brands of dressings available today were on the market as early as the 1920’s. It certainly is convenient. Just shake it up, pour and toss the salad. You can buy a huge range of dressings, but they are expensive and contain preservatives. You can create your own with little effort and know the purity of all ingredients.

 

 Some people think they are “making” it when they use a little envelope of pre-made seasonings and add vinegar and water.” That is the way I grew up. Occasionally we would have a bottled French type dressing.

But my love for homemade dressing started in the sixty’s when I tasted Green Goddess dressing at a restaurant; a salad dressing that is a mixture of mayonnaise, anchovies, tarragon vinegar, parsley, scallions, garlic, and other spices. Yummy, creamy, herby and tangy all at once! Can you think of a restaurant dressing that you love? Chances are you can recreate it with some experimentation or searching. I found my green goddess dressing in “The Joy of Cooking”. I love this dressing as a vegetable dip as well as a salad dressing. I feature this dressing in many of my catering jobs.

The original and oldest of all dressings is the oil and vinegar better known by its French name vinaigrette. Mayonnaise based dressings are not only used on green salads but also is used in fruit salads, potato salads and cole slaw. My mother used to make a quick and easy salad dressing of mayonnaise and pineapple juice served over a wedge of cream cheese with rings of pineapple.

 

I make salad dressings the old fashioned way- from scratch. We even make our salad dressing in our café and catering business. Many times I use dried herbs and some times fresh. But I always use a good Extra Virgin Olive Oil (it pays to get the best quality) and some sort of good vinegar or citrus juiced. The olive oil can be Italian, Greek French or even Spanish. Sometimes I even use some fruit preserves as taught to me by my good friend Pat. There can be many other ingredients. For instance the ever popular Caesar salad dressing has garlic, anchovies, Worcestershire sauceDijonmustard and an egg as well as vinegar and oil.  As always, the key is in the quality of the ingredients.

 

At home I use only a wooden salad bowl and utensils. My salad bowls are well seasoned. I never wash them with soap. I wipe them with a damp cloth so they stay seasoned. I also serve salad on a plate and fork taken from the freezer at the last moment.  I also learned this from my Mom.

There is old French saying “politeness is in the bottom of the bowl”. It means simply do not drown your lettuce in dressing. The proper way to “dress” a salad is to mix your salad dressing in a bowl. Then pass your tossing utensils through the dressing, then at the last possible moment add delicately picked apart leaves to the bowl and toss the salad gently so as not to bruise the delicate leaves. It is also considered “polite” to serve yourself first because there will be less dressing on those leaves. You will be leaving the better servings for your guests.

Making a good salad dressing is easy and just takes moments to do. You can make a different salad dressing every time with out all those bottles and jars in the refrigerator.

There is an anonymous saying: Be a benefactor with the oil, a miser with the vinegar, a poet with the salt, and a demon with the pepper! The best dressed salad is one that allows individual ingredients be tasted.