MONITOR:A good salad screams colour, vibrancy, natural goodness and high summer - all on one plate.
THE ROMANS MAY have invented them, the French certainly made a good job of perfecting them, but it is the Americans who really celebrate their salads. From basic to high-end dining, menus across the US often have one dish that screams colour, vibrancy, natural goodness and high summer – all on one plate.
So what makes a good salad? It’s a bit of knife-edge thing. Too much activity in a salad and things get messy. Raw vegetables, eg lettuce, tomato, cucumber and fennel, get top billing, but they are quickly followed by their cooked cousins – anything from French beans to potatoes, courgettes, spinach and cauliflower.
There are two routes to salad making, both are grounded in the French cuisine of grandmere rather than fine dining, salade verteand salades composées. High-end dining is getting in on the act, however, with vegetables prominent, as the protein element of fine dining is being recast in a less overt – albeit, stylish and innovative – role. Think froths, foams and essences.
Purists will insist the best dressing is quality olive oil, with sufficient acidity, such as vinegar or lemon juice, to add bite. But anything from yoghurt to cream to the juices from roasted or grilled meat can make for an inspired dressing.
I grew up with garlic as an integral part of any dressing, but went off the idea years ago – too overpowering. If your leaves are of sufficient pedigree it is madness to drown them in garlic. Then there’s bagged salad, those sealed pillow-bags that are oh-so convenient but the leaves taste of nothing. They are to salad what bottled dressings are – dull, bland and tasteless.
Instead, go for a proper stem, ideally with some earth attached, and a deep dark green colour. Some say one leaf only, for others a mixture is crucial. In Italy, still considered by many the true home of salad, vegetable stalls sell various mixes that change with the seasons, radicchio being a popular winter addition.
Some say fruit is not worth considering, but feta and watermelon, or peach, mozzarella and Parma ham challenges that view. The sweetness needs to be kept in check, but on a warm summer’s day a salad with slivers of ice-cold melon is sublime. Textural contrast is everything in salad and this comes into its own with the composed salads; sauteed chicken livers, poached or smoked fish, cured meats. There really is no end. Every reason to dine on nothing but salads till the end of the summer. harnold@irishtimes.com