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Salad, in its most familiar guise, is a cool, crisp, refreshing collection of greens tossed with a piquant dressing. The possibilities, however, don't end here. Best salad recipes can be created from a seemingly endless array of ingredients, each contributing different flavors and textures and sometimes even dictating different serving temperatures.
Whether prepared with beans or bread, with grains or greens, or served chilled or warm, a salad is always welcome. It can also play a variety of roles.
A salad can be an appetite-teasing first course or a tempting side dish, especially at summer barbecues and picnics,but, bolstered with meat, chicken, or seafood, a salad can also serve as a satisfying but light main dish for warm-weather meals.
Although salad recipes are traditionally associated with the summer months, there are many salad recipes that can be just as tempting at chillier times of year.
While salads can sometimes provide a meal in themselves, many of these salads are suitable to serve as starters to a three-course dinner or as accompaniments to main courses. Emely's recipes contains such classics as classic tossed salad and greek salad, as well as simple And quick salad recipes using a diverse range of ingredients, such as ham salad with hot peanut dressing, asparagus, orange and endive salad and layered picnic pasta salad and more.
Choose crisp looking greens with no bruised, yellowing,or brown tipped leaves. Iceberg lettuce should be heavy for its size and feel firm when squeezed. As soon as you get it home, wash, dry, and store the lettuce leaves. This will keep the greens fresh longer and provide a few days' worth of salad ready to be put together when you are. Even pre washed greens should be washed and dried to refresh them and to rinse off any bacteria from the surface of the leaves.
No one wants a gritty salad, so wash greens well. Separate the leaves, submerge them in a sinkful or large bowl of cold water, and gently agitate the greens to loosen the dirt. Lift the greens from the water, leaving the grit to sink to the bottom. Curly leafed greens, as well as spinach and arugula, are especially sandy, and dirt often gets trapped in the crevices of the leaves. Wash these in cool water (the slightly warmer temperature loosens dirt better than cold water), and, if necessary,give the greens a second washing. Dry salad greens thoroughly before using or storing. Not only do wet greens dilute the dressing and make for a less flavorful, soggy salad, but they won't keep well either. A salad spinner provides an efficient way to dry greens, but you can also pat greens dry with paper towels or clean kitchen towels. If you are washing spinach, arugula, or watercress, remove their tough stems after rinsing.
To store, wrap the rinsed and dried greens in a clean kitchen towel (or in a few paper towels), place in a plastic bag (pressing out all the excess air), and store in the vegetable crisper drawer of the refrigerator. Tender leaf lettuce will keep for two to three days, iceberg and other sturdy lettuces will keep for up to five days. Very delicate greens, such as arugula or watercress, will keep for only a day or so.
A composed salad has its ingredients artfully layered and arranged on individual plates, the dressing drizzled over the top. A tossed salad has, well, its ingredients and their dressing tossed together in a bowl, ready to be served.
The choice is yours: elegance or efficiency.
Salad greens fall into either of two basic categories: delicate and tender or assertive and slightly bitter. Tender greens, such as lettuce, are served alone or combined with other vegetables. There are four types of lettuce: crisphead (iceberg) varieties are crisp and mild flavored and stand up well to thicker dressings; butterhead (Bibb, Boston) is sweet tasting and delicate and should be served with an appropriately light bodied dressing; loose leaf (oak leaf) is tender but has a slightly stronger flavor than butterhead; long-leaf (romaine) has long, firm, crisp leaves and is another candidate for rich, thick dressings. Stronger flavored greens (including members of the chicory family) are usually combined with sweeter lettuces for a well balanced salad. Flavorwise, their mild bitterness contrasts nicely with the natural sweetness of the lettuces, but greens such as radicchio and Belgian endive are also invaluable as color elements in the salad palette.
