What do you make when you have ten minutes? when you want to celebrate the beauty of spring? when you want to eat healthy? when you must avoid all leavening for the next eight days? when you're trying to justify the Death by Chocolate dessert*?
Salad!
*=Death by Chocolate, the caloric equivalent of shopping in Beverly Hills ("if you have to ask about its calories, it's not on your diet"), flourless chocolate cake and chocolate mousse: bonus recipes included! Best of all, they're kosher for Passover!
First, let's establish some ground rules*.
- A salad should have some lettuce or other leafy green vegetables, unless it doesn't. Iceberg lettuce is the salad-bar equivalent of Diet Coke: it's not going to make you fat, but it doesn't have any nutritional benefit either. I buy bagged/boxed salads (organic from Earthbound Farms, not Readypac or Fresh Express, please): although the unnecessary packaging leads to environmental guilt, the bagged/boxed greens last much longer than the bulk greens, which benefits my health, so IMO it's a worthwhile tradeoff.
- A salad should also have some other vegetables. I have a strongly held opinion that a good salad should have 2 (if part of a dinner) to 4 (if a meal) other vegetables: less and it's boring, more and you end up with confusion in your mouth. Try to include a variety of sizes: e.g., if you're including long, skinny asparagus, it's best to avoid long, skinny carrots and green beans, and cut your bell pepper into cubes rather than long, skinny slices. Many vegetables are very crunchy (carrots, bell peppers, jicama) so try to vary them with vegetables that are not so crunchy (sprouts, mushrooms, tomatoes).
- An appetizer salad at a nice dinner party should include one unusual ingredient. Some of my favorites include blueberries, blackberries, raspberries (can you tell that I like berries?), unusual crumbly cheeses, grapefruit segments, or blood orange segments.
- A stand-alone-meal salad should have one other ingredient with protein: nuts, cheese, a hardboiled egg, a bacon slice, last night's leftover tri-tip, etc.
- And a salad should be like humans in the tropics, i.e., lightly dressed.
*=Of course, as Jack Sparrow explained, these rules are more like guidelines.
Here are some of my favorite salads:
Usual lunch salad:
--Greens for 1 person
--About 1/3 of 1 bell pepper, diced into bite size pieces
--Tomatoes: about 1 ordinary tomato or 8-10 miniature tomatoes
--Last night's leftover chicken
Red, White, and Blue Salad
--Greens for 4 people
--About 1 red bell pepper or enough really red tomatoes for 4 people
--About 4 oz crumbled feta cheese
--About 1 cup blueberries
Arrange everything else on top of the greens in a patriotic fashion.
I first had the feta cheese and blueberry combination at Jake's Grill in Portland, OR. It's an unexpected combination, but the salty-sweet flavors work great together. The red bell pepper provides color and Independence Day theme, but can be omitted.
French Pear, Bleu Cheese, and Nuts Salad
--Field greens for 1: endive is classic, but I don't care for its bitter taste, so I use arugula, known for its bitter taste. Go figure. Watercress is also classic (and is one of the few vegetables with calcium, making it especially appropriate for pregnant women).
--1 oz (2 Tbsp) bleu cheese or similar strong tasting cheese
--1/2 pear
--1-2 oz (2 Tbsp-1/4 C) walnuts, if being classic, or pecans, if being American.
--Lots of pepper
Use a very mellow salad dressing. I suppose you could omit the bleu cheese and just dress with blue cheese salad dressing, but you'd be breaking the rules guidelines! oh noes!
Basic vinaigrette salad dressing:
--1 part vinegar: white wine vinegar, rice wine vinegar, or try using a flavored vinegar that echoes a salad flavor, e.g., raspberry vinegar for a salad with raspberries
--3 parts oil: use the cheap bottle labeled (duh) "salad oil," not the expensive olive oil. You can mix a small amount (about 2 Tbsp olive oil and 10 Tbsp salad oil is 3/4 cup), but if you use too much, the olive oil overpowers the other tastes.
--To emulsify the two (keep them mixed), a small amount (1 tsp along with 1/4 C. vinegar and 3/4 C. oil) of mustard (yuppie mustard, not French's!) is very helpful.
--A tiny dash of salt and a big dash of pepper
Whisk these together in a small bowl, or a small food processor if you have one. Note that making your own salad dressing is a great way to use the condiments you got last Christmas.
--Additional flavoring ingredients, your choice: herbs, garlic chopped very fine, shallot chopped very fine, honey (1 Tbsp), chives, or lemon juice. I've occasionally pulverized very ripe blackberries.
And, for all you Real Men who don't think salad is manly:Taco Salad:
Hey! you're protesting. What about dessert? I've been so virtuous in eating all that rabbit food healthy stuff, I want my rich chocolate dessert! First, a note to the Jews among us: Passover is approaching, so flour-based desserts must be shunned. Macaroons are the traditional dessert, but macaroons are made with coconut, which is actually wood shavings with artery-clogging tropical oil added for taste further repulsiveness. Besides, which would you rather have: dried out macaroons packaged in a box, or Death By Chocolate flourless chocolate cake?
Flourless Chocolate Cake
4 ounces fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened)
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder plus additional for sprinkling
Preheat oven to 375°F and butter an 8-inch round baking pan. Line bottom with a round of wax paper and butter paper. Chop chocolate into small pieces. In a double boiler or metal bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water melt chocolate with butter, stirring, until smooth. Remove top of double boiler or bowl from heat and whisk sugar into chocolate mixture (if you don't have a whisk, use a fork, not a spoon). Add eggs and whisk well. Sift 1/2 cup cocoa powder over chocolate mixture and whisk until just combined. Pour batter into pan and bake in middle of oven 25 minutes, or until top has formed a thin crust. Cool cake in pan on a rack 5 minutes and invert onto a serving plate. You can dust with additional cocoa powder, whip some cream, or if you've planned ahead, you can sprinkle with chocolate curls.
Or, if you prefer, Chocolate Mousse:
--8 oz semisweet chocolate
--4 oz unsweetened chocolate
--3/4 C. (one and a half sticks) butter
5 eggs, separated
3 Tbsp liqueur: rum, Kahlua, Frangelico, Amaretto, or your favorite
2 Tbsp to 1/4 C. sugar
1 C. heavy cream
Chocolate curls for garnish
Melt chocolate and butter together using double boiler or bowl set over saucepan of barely simmering water. In a large bowl, beat the egg yolks, then add the chocolate-butter mixture and the liqueur. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form, add sugar, and continue to beat until stiff. Whisk a third of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and fold in the rest. In yet another bowl, whip the cream until soft peaks form, then fold into the chocolate-egg mixture. Refrigerate until firm. To serve, spoon the mousse onto plates, giving the largest amount to the person who's cleaned up all those bowls, garnish with chocolate curls, and have a heart surgeon on speed dial.
Last, a political note: stick to locally available and seasonal ingredients. Although I included the French pear salad because it's a personal favorite and an illustration of the less-is-more ingredient list, this salad is best made in the fall, when pears are locally grown. The freshest salad starts in your vegetable garden. Shop your farmer's market and try one new vegetable every week. Eat healthy and save room for dessert!