The Dirty Kitchen Cookbook (Preview)

ALT OM SALATER
All about salads
By Elise Lucotte
Editor’s note: Salads are always healthy and refreshing accompaniments to daily meals, but what
does it take to make great salads? Here, Elise Lucotte from France talks about how to create simple
salads as well as dressings.
An essential ingredient for any salad I make is tomatoes. Any kind of tomatoes. During winter, or if
you don’t have access to nice tomatoes, you can use cherry tomatoes—they are always tasty! Then,
the other essential is some salad of course (lettuce, roquette, mâche or a mix of them).
With this basis, you can do whatever you want, but I will give you some examples of tested and approved
combinations:
• Blue cheese and walnut (you can add asparagus too!)
• Sun-dried tomatoes and pine nuts
• Goat’s cheese and apples
• Avocado and mozzarella or feta cheese, with some fresh basil
Regarding meat, I like to add leftovers of barbecue meat or grilled meat in the salad if I have some.
It adds a nice smoky taste. Some people like to add fried bacon, which is delicious with cheese, but
I personally think this is a departure from the principle of a salad—which is to be healthy!
Different salad dressings
With the contents of the salad sorted out, the next thing you need to think about is the dressing.
There are three basic dressings that are easy to prepare and enhance the flavour of your salad:
• The very basic “vinaigrette” where you marry vinegar and oil with a ratio of one tablespoon
of vinegar to two tablespoons of oil. You can make it with balsamic vinegar and
olive oil or raspberry or walnut vinegar with neutral oil. I like to add shallots to the vinaigrette,
especially with the raspberry vinegar! Add some salt and pepper to the mix. The
balsamic version goes well with any combination, and the raspberry/walnut one goes well
with lettuce alone if you don’t have anything else. I like to mix olive oil with tomatoes.
• The mustard version, where you add some mustard to your vinaigrette to bind the oil and
vinegar. I typically add one teaspoon of mustard in the vinaigrette. Adjust to your liking
and the strength of the mustard!
• The sweet version, where you add a teaspoon of honey to your vinaigrette, preferably the
balsamic version. It goes particularly well with a salad containing goat’s cheese.
When is it best to eat a salad? Before or after the main course?
This is a very hard question to ask to a French person. I will say that if you don’t have an entrée,
salad before the main course is a good option because it fills your stomach and makes you eat less
of a potentially more calorific main dish. However, it is also traditional to eat a salad after a big
main dish (for example at Christmas) to have a fresh finish before dessert. It is generally associated
with a cheese platter and some red wine of course!
The perfect salad is not easy, because it really depends on your taste. I would say that the key is to
not put too much dressing so as not to drown the taste of the other ingredients, and to have something
that looks yummy! The ingredients should be of a good quality too, especially the tomatoes.
Masterclass 1
65
The Dirty Kitchen Cookbook