Jolie, What’s In Your Salad?
Previous Jolie salads can be found
here
.
Everybody knows that salad is the best part of the meal. Wait. That might not be right? But … could it be? I believe it might. You see, my superpower is making incredibly good salads. It is, admittedly, a strange superpower to have but we don’t exactly pick these things, now do we?
So from time to time, I’ll check in with you to let you know what’s been in my salad. And to talk Salad Theory with you. Maybe we’ll do some technique work? I know the New York Times is all “You can’t make a chopped salad at home!” but the New York Times is wrong and I intend to demonstrate exactly how wrong the New York Times is.
And there will be dressing! Oh yes, there will be dressing.
Today we’ve got a salad that’s heavy on pickled and jarred items. Pickled and jarred items! These are great for people who often get a li’l too ambitious in the produce aisle and find themselves with crisper drawers of rotting vegetation instead of the marvelously fresh salad they were so sure they were going to pull together as soon as they got home.
Not that any of us would know a thing about that. Nope. Not us.
The theory here (see? I promised you theory!) is that reducing the amount of fresh produce your salad requires means less crisper-drawer stress. The other wonderful thing about incorporating canned and jarred items into your salad is that they offer a lot of flavor without turning what’s purportedly meant to be a healthy endeavor into a bacon cheeseburger (which is well and good in its own time).
Not that any of us would know a thing about that. Nope. Not us.
With that bit of philosophizing out of the way, what is actually in this salad?!?
Leaves
Our Leaf of the Day is: romaine hearts! Why the look? You know, if you keep making that face it’ll freeze like that. Are…are you disappointed in romaine? Why ever? Romaine is a delicious and robust lettuce, and I wish you wouldn’t poo-poo it just because it doesn’t come in plastic clamshell packaging the way that those spindly, peppery things like arugula and mizuna do. ‘Lettuce Snob’ isn’t a good shade on anyone.
Fresh Things
• Cucumbers, quartered lengthwise and diced
• Celery, diced
• Red onion, thinly sliced
Canned, Jarred & Pickled Things
This salad had a li’l bit of everything!
• Canned hearts of palm (salad-cut, which oddly is cheaper and also pre-cut, so salad-cut it is!)
• Jarred roasted red peppers, sliced up into strips
• Sliced, pickled jalapenos, quartered. Spice up your life!
Cheese? Not today, bunny.
Meats? T’were none in the icebox, I’m afraid.
Nuts? We’re currently nutless.
Fruits? Also: Fruitless. But I mention the nuts and the fruits and the meats and the cheeses because those are great things to toss in a salad (groannnnnnn) because they taste good and also are a great way to use up the dregs of any of those things that are leftover and hanging around sullenly in your icebox like a bored teenager waiting for trouble to roll around for a playdate. We’ll talk more about the cheeses and meats and nuts and fruits when we get to An Introduction To Chopped Salad Theory and later in the Chopped Salad Practicum but I also want to encourage you to begin a self-directed course of study now if you so choose.
With What Did You Dress It, Dear Liza, Dear Liza?
With red wine vinegar (free hand), rock salt and a lotta lotta black pepper, Dear Henry, Dear Henry.
Oh right! No oil. I know! I’m in an oil-free salad stage? I find I don’t miss it. Would you like to take the plunge into oil-free salads with me? I think maybe you might be worried that without the oil that salad won’t have taste, which leads me back up to the Canned, Jarred & Pickled Things portion of the fun: those things give your leaves and lesser-flavored items a ton of great taste. Which is a wonderful alternative to dumping a half cup of Catalina dressing on top of all those fresh vegetables with their vitamins and nutrients and fiber and such. You can save the Catalina for your bacon cheeseburger.
About Author
by Jolie Kerr
Jolie Kerr is a cleaning expert and advice columnist, and author of the upcoming book My Boyfriend Barfed In My Handbag … And Other Things You Can't Ask Martha (Plume, 25 February 2014). She is also a salad enthusiast, and a cultivator of spooky things.
I am recently an aficionado of the oil-less salad as well! Well, actually, what happened was that my mother gave me a couple bottles of her homemade tarragon vinegar and since then every vegetable I eat has been turned into little more than a tarragon vinegar delivery vehicle because it is just. that. good.
A nice vinegar (or olive oil, I'm obsessed) makes SUCH a big difference! I have this super-thick aged balsamic that's basically like eating happiness.
y'all: soy. sauce. you can eat the crappiest salad, oil-free, with a dash of soy sauce (and some chili lime cholula, let's be real), and all is well.
I am SO happy to hear that you've also gone oil-less! I was a little worried that people would be horrified at my oil-less salad. But really, I DO NOT miss that oil at all. And it encourages creativity, which is how I ended up with Montreal Steak Seasoning on a salad the other week (it was DELICIOUS).
Orange champagne vinegar = the beginning of my oilless adventure!
When meyer lemons are in season… some juice squeezed on and a bit of the zest. Mmm.
I like oil to be around as well, though, just in case. I think because sometimes the dressing might be too harsh otherwise? I dunno. But YES, good not-oil slooshed on a salad can be so very, very good!
(Or, good low-fat buttermilk blended with handfuls of abundant at this time of year herbs and some spinach! And no oil or mayo!)
Re: preserved things in jars… preserved lemon! Mmmm. And olives. Mmmmmm…
I love salads.
I am SO excited for An Introduction to Chopped Salad Theory and the follow-up practicum, because I do make salads for myself very often and frequently enjoy them, I still think they are not as good as they can be (read: not as good as when I buy them out at places like Chop't or equivalent). And I have become convinced (maybe because of the NYT?) that this is because they are not properly chopped and mixed.
Should I start investing in things? A mezzaluna? A salad spinner? Dressing ingredients?
Oh, definitely yes to dressing ingredients (4:1 ratio of oil to acid and you're pretty much good to go)! And maybe a salad spinner (although only if you shop at farmer's market and get dirty lettuces – delicious). But I find one of the best things to do is always mix up the salad in a really big bowl, so that the dressing really coats everything. So invest in a really big bowl, if you don't have one? I like wooden ones.
Would this be the place to confess that the first time I tried to borrow a roommate's salad spinner I didn't really know what it did, and imagined it serving more of the bowl function that you describe here, and therefore ended up with dressing everywhere except on my salad.
Yes. Yes, it sure would.
Yes, bring on the Intro to Chopped Salad. The salads I make for myself are the saddest little things in the world, but I live with someone whose superpower is Amazing Salad Construction (as well as Amazing Sandwich Construction) and I'd like to push him into the Chopped Salad Practicum, NYT be damned.
Gonna be a hearts of palm contrarian over here–I have never liked those weirdly slimy-crunchy buggers. I can get behind picked jalapenos and roasted red peppers, though.
If you have a good balsamic (and I am no purist; flavored balsamic is fine in my house) you don't need any fats in your food at all. Good balsamic can move mountains.
hearts of palm are pointless at best. also, they sound like a tarot card.
Your future is colorless and damp!
An inverted heart of palm of course is your ideal salad ingredient, waiting in the aisle at the store, undiscovered.
I had hearts of palm a lot one summer in Brazil. On pizza, on burgers, in salads. I loved them. But I've had the sad limp kind too. Maybe there is such a thing as a hierarchy of hearts of palm quality?
I agree. gross
Oh man, I sub them out for artichoke hearts All. The. Time. Wayyyy better!!
I dont even know what hearts of palm are but this sounds delicious!
They sound like they are going to be delicious, but all they lead to is disappointment!
Do you like artichoke hearts? They're similar, texturally, but milder in flavor. As for the rest of you deniers: if you don't like them, don't put them in your salad! Damn, girls. This isn't a saladtatership, ya know.
I *love* artichoke hearts, particularly the grilled and preserved in oil kind. (though I get the feeling they wont last multiple salads and will be eaten in one swoop while Im cleaning the kitchen)
This is a salad of pretty much my favourite things so I dont know why I never thought of putting them all in one bowl before. Thanks!
"saladtatership" should be the name of a very precise potato salad recipe.
I will say, the tarot card gag was kind of awesome.
I really love hearts of palm, and artichoke hearts, and… and… ooooh, sundried tomatoes in oil. But I find sometimes the particular jar/can I got of ______ thing is genuinely terrible, even if the general idea of thing is divine.
I don't know why I can think, there are good and bad vinegars, but I don't extend this thinking to hearts of palm, or whatever. So I stand in the pickled/jarred thing aisle and wonder… which of these is going to be bad? Or good! I don't knoooooowwwww…
Maybe I should do some Consumer Report style research next time I plan to go buy pickled things in pursuit of better information and thus a better salad.
I love salad.
When I make salad without oil I always feel a bit like I'm just eating damp leaves. I think my brain is convinced that without fat, something doesn't actually count as food?
I know it sounds gross but recently I have been eating increasing numbers of bag Caesar salads sans dressing and I just really love it. Lettuce, cheese, crouton. Yum.
Also, extremely excited for this series. HOWEVER I cannot get behind red onions. They unnerve me.
Red onion revelation: if you soak them in the vinegar for 10-20 minutes as you're chopping up everything else for a salad, they get slightly pickled, delicious, and way less harsh.
I make a very excellent olive salad with juniper and vermouth dressing.
The sad thing is, before I got the joke I thought that actually sounded good.
hahaha me too!
I was yay close to asking for the recipe …
PUT VINEGAR ON EVERYTHING
That is all ye know, and all ye need know.
Oh man, I made a MAJOR veggie slurry type thing that I deglazed with red wine vinegar and I was like, "I AM A MAD KITCHEN GENIUS."
Vinegar is so freaking magical.
Vinegar is magical. I think that needs to be on a Tshirt somewhere. Eat it! Pickle with it! CLEAN with it!
But are we laughing? Are we alone?
Aren't we all alone, in the end?
I WILL EAT YOUR HEART (of palm)
No, no, no. Oil-less salads make my soul hurt.
I can't quite roll with *no* oil at all, but I definitely think the classic 3:1 oil-to-vinegar ratio is way off balance. I kinda like 2:1 vinegar to oil, myself. But I also always add a dollop of dijon mustard and a minced/mashed clove of garlic (or shallots, alternatively), plus salt and pepper. That's my go-to dressing, and it makes the actual salad components pretty much inconsequential –just throw that shit on some greens of whatever sort and you've got a delicious salad, no fancy additions necessary.
Part of the point of the oil is that the fat signals satiety to your brain, so you aren't starving 20 minutes later. Oils aren't necessarily the best way to do this – if you want an oil-less salad, put on some almonds and walnuts.
http://today.ttu.edu/2013/07/feelings-of-fullness …