Tag Archives: dressing

4 principles for a tasty salad

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A good salad is about balance and contrast. If you keep the following 4  principles in mind, you can make special salads every day of the year.

  1. Don’t combine too many ingredients, the best salads have around 5 main ingredients. This ensures you taste every ingredients shines.
  2. Make a simple dressing that compliments your ingredients. If you insist on using a complex dressing like a ceasar dressing, keep your salad even more simple: using up to 3 ingredients. For more information on ceasar salad read about my dutch ceasar salad here.
  3. Balance your flavors. Make sure you have a sharp/spicy, sweet, salty, sour, savory and bitter component in your ingredients and dressing.
    Sparpness can come from unions, chili or pepper.
    Sweet can come form honey in your dressing or some fruit or sultanas.
    Salty can come from some cheese, bacon,salty nuts or even sea salt.
    Sour can come from sertain lettuce leaves or butter milk in your dressing.
    Savory kan come from nuts, croutons or bacon.
    Bitter notes can come from your choice of leaves, cheese or fruits like grapefruit.
  4. Balance your textures. Make sure you have a variety of textures. Croutons or nuts for some bite, soft cheese or pears, creamy dressing and crunchy lettuce or cucumber.

FestiveLettuce1

The other day I made a tasty well balanced salad using endive leaves, feta cheese , union, tomatoe and bacon with a simple honey mustard dressing. For the honey mustard dressing combine equal quantities of mustard and honey. For a more runny dressing add water of (butter) milk to this mixture.

Rockin Rocket Pesto

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rrpIf you ever tried growing rocket (or arugula) you know it grows like a weed. You can eat these lovely leaves every day once your rocket plants get going.

In Holland you find them in the wild too. They grow on sandy soil, so you find them in the dunes, next to rail roads and just on side walks.

If you are lucky enough to have an abundance of rocket, you might be looking for a new way to use it up. I like to do this by making my own pesto.

This recipe has no exact quantities, I suggest going with your instincts, and go by what you have in your fridge and adding ingredients to your taste.

Rocket_Pesto

Rockin Rocket Pesto

  • 1 – 2 handfulls of rocket
  • 1 handful of cashews (or hazelnuts, walnuts, peanuts, whatever nut you like)
  • a piece of hard cheese
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • 1 – 2 tbsp of lemon juice
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • Salt and pepper to taste

I grind and mix my ingredients in my trusty little blender. Make sure you have enough oil in the blender.

Store your pesto in a jar or container in the fridge. Keep a layer of oil on top of your pesto to keep it fresh. Eat it within a week, but for us this is not a challenge!

This pesto is lovely as a dip with some home made bread, on your (meat) sandwich or through your pasta. If you add some more oil and lemon juice, it makes a lovely dressing for your tomatoes and mozzarella salad.

RocketPesto_Salad

 

This recipe works with basil or fenil tops too.

Dutch Ceasar Salad

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My mother used to make lovely salads with endives. I grew to love this bitter leaf. I have found it is the perfect ceasar salad leaf. You can substitute with your own favorite crunchy leaves.

Old gouda cheese is a good strong old and hardy cheese to replace Parmesan in this recipe.

Ceaser

Dutch Ceasar Salad

  • Dressing (for multiple salads):
    • 1 tbsp mayonaise
    • 1 tsp mustard
    • 50 ml butter milk
    • 1 pinch of dried chili
    • 1 tbsp lemon juice
    • 1 tbsp olive oil
    • 1 tsp thyme
    • 1 tsp oregano
    • 1 tsp salt
    • 1 tsp pepper
    • 1 cruched garlic clove
  • half a bunch of endives
  • 150 grams of grated old Gouda
  • 1 crouton recipe

Mix all the ingredients for the dressing in a jar. Shake the jar to combine the ingredients. You can make this dressing up to 4 days in advance and keep the dressing in the fridge in a jar or container. Preferably you let the dressing stand for at least 30 mins to let the flavors come together.

Clean your endives. Slives the leaves into chunky pieces.

Mix your ingredients at the last moment for a crunchy salad. Use the amount of dressing you prefer, I like a thin coating on my leaves.