I’ve been following my mother’s lead my whole life on how to make a very simple salad. Olive oil and vinegar is all it is, and it’s the only way I can dress a salad, as I’ve never met a bottled dressing that I like.
When I recently brought over dinner to a friend, and she raved about the salad dressing, I told her simply how I made it. Her response was: “wow, that’s brilliant…making salad from the bottom up…you should share this on your blog.” Since another friend, who I see at a gathering every Labor Day, has also adopted my way of salad making, and raves about it every year, I decided that maybe this is worth sharing. So here goes:
Salad Dressing:
1T balsamic or red wine vinegar
3 T olive oil
up to 1 tsp of salt (I usually use just a few twists of the salt grinder)
I guess the following procedure is the genius of this recipe. Measure vinegar and oil into a salad bowl. If you have time to let the dressing sit a bit, slice a garlic clove or two in half and let it sit in the dressing. Then add what ever veggies you want – scallions, cukes, tomatoes, avocado etc., and let them sit while you’re preparing the rest of your dinner. This marinates the vegetables a bit. Remember to remove the garlic cloves before you finish off the salad. Just throw the lettuce on top, add slivered almonds, gorgonzola or whatever you so desire, then toss just before sitting down. Bringing up the dressing from the bottom really puts a nice coating on the entire salad.
This amount of dressing makes a decent size salad to serve 4.
Just a note, if you don’t have the time to let it sit and put in the garlic – that’s OK. (Actually I rarely use the garlic, but it really adds to the flavor). Just mixing in the dressing from the bottom makes a huge difference.
2-13-2009 08:41:11
I’ve been making a similar salad, which I found in the Dairy Hollow House Cookbook. (The recipe is called “The Salad”.) You pour a couple of tablespoons of good olive oil into a wood salad bowl, then add a clove of crushed garlic, a dab of Dijon mustard, a splash of Worchester sauce, and salt and pepper. You swish/mix that all together first, then add romaine or red leaf lettuce and toss the leaves until they are coated with the dressing. Then you squeeze the juice of a lemon over the lettuce and toss again –
This is the freshest salad ever, and goes with everything!
2-13-2009 19:20:07
hmmm that sounds delicious too CIndy. Will have to try it. Thanks for sharing.
2-14-2009 10:42:22
Thanks for posting this, it sounds like a nice idea. We love salads, eating them often during the week. I also had another recipe from the bottom up recently – a hot fudge sundae where the fudge was put in the bottom of the ice cream dish beneath the ice cream. It worked really well that way!
2-15-2009 17:34:50
What a great idea! Isn’t it funny how the simplest switcheroo makes such a huge difference?