Daly Salad Manifesto

I love making a nice big salad when I host meals, including a simple homemade dressing. I’ve been asked a few times for the recipe, so here it is in all its glory! More of a how-to vs. a recipe, I wanted to provide some insight into how I think about each of the components. Understanding balance and attention to each detail of each element is what brings this recipe to life.

Ingredients:

Salad (serves ~4, adjust as necessary):

Lettuce, best available (see notes below)

Peppers, red, green, yellow

Carrots, 1-2 large, peeled

Cucumber, 1 large, partly peeled (leave strips of skin)

Shallot, 1 large

Dried cranberry (unsweetened), handful

Almonds, roasted unsalted, handful

Optional:

Radish

Aged Cheddar

Grilled Chicken breast

Dressing:

EVOO, best available (see notes below)

Olivier Aged Balsamic Vinegar

Honey (if Olivier unavail.)

Gray Poupon Dijon mustard (smooth)

Shallot, 1 large, minced

Garlic, 2 cloves, minced

Sea Salt, Black Pepper

Firstly, as you can see by the ingredients, the salad is very simple. The essence is the combination of flavors, which are finely balanced against eachother, the salty and sweet, acid, black pepper, dijon, richness of good olive oil, all thinly layered over beautiful fresh greens and vegetables. High quality ingredients are key.

Do not skimp on your olive oil. Good quality extra virgin olive oil is expensive, but it’s worth it. There is a depth of flavor in great olive oil that can not be replicated. I love Tuscan olive oil, ever since Rachel and I did a week in Italy in 2014, Tuscan is my favorite, but it’s hard to find and VERY expensive.  But other good quality oils can also work well. One of my go-to’s is William Sonoma house California EVOO bold and peppery. It’s great, more of an everyday olive oil that can be used in a wide range of applications. Pastosa in Cranford also carries an EVOO called Madre Sicilia that is a very good value. Get the best stuff you can afford (go ahead splurge a little just this once, your taste buds and your family and friends will thank me, and you won’t go back).

I also use a very good aged balsamic vinegar from William Sonoma. It’s the Olivier 25 year barrel aged. It’s ridiculously good, it’s dense, viscous, and sweet, unlike any other balsamic that I’ve had. Other aged balsamic is so acidic and thin, watery almost, hard to blend into a smooth consistency. Not the Olivier, the richness and sweetness make for very easy blending / whisking. It’s great to drizzle over bread and raw veggies. Trust me, it’s worth it. But, if you want to give the recipe a shot and don’t have time to run to your nearest W&S, use the best aged balsamic you can find, and compensate for the lack of sweetness of the Olivier by adding some honey, to taste, but probably about 1-2 teaspoons. It will help with the balance of flavors and add some thickness to the dressing, helping it stick to the salad and veggies.

The next most important ingredient is the lettuce that you select. You’ll notice that I did not specify a type of lettuce, but rather the best that you can find. This is important. Don’t go the supermarket, market, or farmstand with a thought in mind that you must select a certain varietal. Let your senses guide you. Look for bright color, be it green, red, purple, or otherwise. Look for hearty, firm stalks. For God’s sake, if it looks wilty or limp, pass. Check multiple heads of the best looking lettuce, and select the freshest of the bunch. Be discerning. I’ve made this salad with great success with romaine, green leaf, red leaf, butter lettuces, spring mixes, mesclun greens, arugula, baby kale, etc. Often times, I’ll select multiple types of lettuce, like a romaine and a musclun or baby greens. I like to mix up the colors and have a variety. There are lots of options here, but the main point is to select the freshest, firmest you can find (and make it as soon after you select it as possible, days in the fridge will not be helpful).

https://dalywatch.club/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/img_1798.mov

Do the same with the rest of the veggies you select. Treat the salad ingredients above as a loose guide rather than a strict rule. I love peppers, sweet, crunchy, and colorful, so I always use them. Rachel’s family loves onions, so I add more onions when I’m preparing a salad for them. When you are selecting your veggies, again, let your senses guide you. I love going to Dreyer’s Farm in Cranford when it’s open in the warmer months, and browsing the selection of freshly picked vegetables, bunches of radishes, carrots, spring onions, basil and herbs. Use it all.

This salad is very versatile and should shift with the seasons and availability of ingredients. As you experiment and practice, keep the flavors of the ingredients in mind and play around with different combinations of flavors, using more or less balsamic as an example, more dijon when the dark leafy kale seems to ask for it, and so on.

Now, to make the dressing. Actually, start by preheating a large sauté pan over low to medium heat. Allow the pan to get nice and warm. Many home cooks make the mistake of putting the pan over heat and beginning to cook immediately. Resist that urge. Let the pan heat up slowly, until it’s at a uniform heat, and no longer heating or cooling in any direction, but maintaining a nice hot surface. This is important (for any cooking really), as it helps the garlic and shallots to cook on the surface and quickly develop a brown, which will help keep them from sticking. Use a good heavy pan, cast iron is great, or solid steel, I don’t like the cheap light stuff coated in non-stick… once that non-stick material is gone, the pan is dead, and they don’t heat very evenly.

While the pan is preheating, finely mince the shallot and garlic. Aim to produce tiny cubes of uniform size. This is important to ensure that all these goodies are cooked evenly and browned uniformly. Use a sharp knife. A dull knife makes mincing challenging, demoralizing really. Don’t go there. I like to use a nice heavy 7″ hollow edge santoku style knife. They are easy to handle and shaped well for mincing. If you don’t have a good pan or a good knife, invest in 1 good pan and 1 good knife. Even the basics from William Sonoma (surprise surprise) are very good. If you cook at home at all, it’s a worthwhile investment. I find cooking so much more pleasurable when I have the right tools. A sharp knife makes all the difference.

Add a little of your EVOO to your warm pan, just enough to coat the cooking surface. Let the oil warm up for 30 seconds to a minute. Add the minced shallots and garlic. Rejoice in the aromas that will be filling your kitchen. This, alone, makes the recipe worth it. Your guests will comment that you home “smells amazing.” It will. Stir the garlic and shallots occasionally, add some cracked sea salt and coarsely ground cracked black pepper. The mix should be heating slowly. Let sit for a minute or 90 seconds, stir and turn, repeat as necessary until the shallots have sweated and the garlic begins to turn golden. Don’t let it go too far, you don’t want roasted, deeply browned or burned garlic, you want little golden chunks of sweet garlic and shallot goodness. There is a big difference in flavor, so be careful here. Err on the side of taking them off too soon rather than too late. Shouldn’t take more than 3-4 minutes on the heat.

https://dalywatch.club/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/img_3531-1.mov

Remove all of the contents of the pan, golden garlic and shallots, and any excess oil into a small, high walled bowl, suitable for mixing / whisking. I use a the smallest bowl from a set of stainless steel mixing bowls from Cuisinart. Basic and functional works here. To this bowl, add additional EVOO, the amount depending on the size of your salad. I don’t measure, but I imagine that I’m pouring the oil directly over the salad. How much would you use? Add that amount to the bowl. Not more than 1/2 a cup I would guess.

Now add a healthy scoop of dijon. 2 teaspoons? 1 tablespoon? Maybe, play around with it. Remember, you can always add more, so start slow. Now add some of that aged balsamic, in roughly equal parts to the dijon. Same advice here, start slow, you can always add. Add a little cracked sea salt and pepper. Whisk vigorously, until blended completely.

Taste. Adjust mixture as necessary. It’s common for me to add a bit of dijon or a pinch of balsamic at this stage. Perhaps more EVOO is needed, if the mix has become too thick for the type of lettuce to be dressed. Keep in mind where the dressing is going. If you picked arugula, for example, you probably want a lighter dressing, take it easy on the dijon. If you picked a very hearty kale as your base, the dressing needs to be a little thicker, so add more dijon and balsamic. Be purposeful in how you make your adjustments.

Regarding the salad itself, also be clear in the choices you make regarding the components to add. I like to coarsely chop the lettuce, into almost-too-big pieces, the better to hold onto dressing and capture bits of veggies, and chunks of other good things. I like the slice my peppers very fine, the easier to stab with a fork. I want to fork my salad, not scoop my salad. I like to chop carrots long and lengthy for the same reason. Thick chunks of carrot are tough to fork. But I do not julienne or shred veggies.

When I get a bite, whatever component is there, I want to taste it fully. I do not want every bite to be uniform. I want there to be surprises and bursts of flavor, perhaps the sweetness of a dried cranberry, a chunk of garlic, the crunch of a carrot, a delightful chunk of a bit of coarse sea salt or peppercorn. Keep the salad coarse. It’s more interesting that way.

Whisk your dressing over your chunky salad and toss in a large bowl that is probably too big for the salad. This allows you to really toss the salad and evenly distribute the dressing throughout. You can make the dressing ahead of time, but wait until the last possible moment to dress and toss before serving. You can do this in front of your guests, it’s entertaining! Also taste the salad while you are dressing. You may need a bit more cracked salt and pepper. You’d be amazed at how much salt the salad can take. Add slowly until you can just barely taste it. I like to crack large chunks of sea salt, which makes a big difference vs. adding finely ground salt or even sprinkling in kosher salt flakes. Again, you don’t want a homogeneously salty salad, you want to find a few chunks of salt throughout, little surprise burses of flavor. Depending on the amount of salad vs dressing that you’ve made, you might want to add a bit more straight EVOO at this stage as well. I like a light coat, boarding too light, so the flavor is there, but you can really taste each of the ingredients that have been added. Each imparting their own flavor and balance to the overall dish.

I love this salad with a glass of wine. Many varieties would work, but I love dry white, like Sancerre, or French Chardonnay (white burgundy), or a dry sparkling wine (good bubbles go great!), dry reds also work, like food friendly Chianti, Nebbiolo, Brunello, Cru Beaujolais, French or Oregon Pinot Noir (dry burgundy)… on and on. Pick a wine that goes with your main course and enjoy! Add a final crack of pepper once the salad is plated, maybe a pinch of Maldon Sea Salt and dig in!!