Cooking Hotness: Dress your salad

My greens

Somehow, between sleep and Metal Gear, I managed to tend to my garden. I was clipping my salad greens, which were wildly overgrown, when what should I discover but two small snails feasting happily from stem to stalk.

The leaves were still good, though, after I weeded out the wimpier cuttings and washed them very thoroughly. I laid them out to dry on some paper towels and considered how to dress up the sprouts for eating. I have a fridge full of bacon and booze, but not much in the way of green-friendly condiments. Just as I was blenching at the thought of smothering my sprouts in hungry barbecue sauce, the inspiration for this Cooking Hotness challenge came to me.

I'm not a fan of the American style. I like a simple plate, and there's nothing I enjoy more than a green salad with a simple vinaigrette. People will pay upwards of $6 for a 12-ounce bottle of "gourmet" salad dressing, never imagining that they could create their own. Today, I'll teach you how to make a basic vinaigrette, and give you a few hints on how to spruce it up.

What you'll need to dress a salad for two: 9 tbsp Oil
3 tbsp Vinegar or freshly-squeezed lemon juice
Salt
Fresh cracked pepper

What you need to do:

First, choose quality ingredients. You can use any oil for this recipe, but no kitchen is complete without olive oil, which is usually my preference for vinaigrette. $30 will buy you a large tin of decent olive oil. Also, the quality of balsamic vinegar increases proportionately to the price, and the top stuff is high test: a little bit goes a long way. For everyday use, I like Fini.

Over-salting is the main offender in bad cooking. Buying sea salt, like Maldon crystals, can insure against this in a couple of ways. First, it's more expensive than regular salt, so you'll want to conserve it. Secondly, a good sea salt or fleur de sel is milder in flavour and less coarse than plain old table salt, which is usually pungent and harsh. And, for god's sake, crack your own pepper. That powdered stuff never did anyone any good.

Finally, please squeeze your lemons fresh. That bottled juice looses its acidity, along with all its nutritive value, on the shelf, and is best preserved for flavouring your Coke, not your food. Do yourself a favour: buy a citrus reamer and juice 'em fresh. Thrifty tip: tired of breaking the bank for a lime? You can get limóns on the cheap at ethnic groceries.

Now, down to the nitty gritty:

Whisk your choice of oil and lemon juice or vinegar until amalgamated. Then, season to taste with salt and pepper. Voila! You have a simple vinaigrette.




What? Not enough stuff for you? I have a fix for that, too. To dress up your dressing, try adding the following and just mix to a smooth consistency:

2 tbsp Dijon mustard
3 tbsp honey
2 tbsp berry puree (puree 1/2 pint of fruit in a blender or mash by hand and strain through a fine sieve. To make a coulis, add sugar to taste)
2 tsp (fresh) or 1 tbsp (ground) cumin

There! Tamh, I put it to you to do something extra creative with this kitchen basic.

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