How To Like Salad

A year or so ago, Jeff and I found that salad had taken over from the quesadilla as our fallback dinner. This is not because we were on a health kick, or because we suddenly decided a bunch of greens made a satisfying meal. We weren't even sick of quesadillas (though maybe the dearth of decent tortillas in midcoast Maine had something to do with it). We stumbled on a secret, and then we started to like salad best.

Here is the secret: potatoes. Salad with roasted potatoes (see appendix) is delicious, and much more filling than salad without roasted potatoes. I can't remember whether we came up with this idea ourselves or stole it from Cafe Miranda, where they serve a salad with french fries in it called "Gnu Evan's." (Jeff recently learned that the dish is named after the owner's son, and was invented in order to get the kid to eat salad. It works for adults too.)

I should specify what I mean by "salad." Mostly I mean arugula. We use other greens when they are better or more available than arugula. If we have nothing else in the house, we'll just have greens with a vinaigrette, and ideally potatoes. Otherwise we add some combination of:

• fruit: chopped up apples, dried cranberries, bits of orange
  
• nuts: try toasting hazelnuts until they're kind of black, then chopping.
  
• cheese: goat, feta
• onions: I like them pickled or soaked in the vinegar from the dressing for a bit
• avocado
• vegetables that are in season (really no point in winter tomatoes, right?)
• croutons made of leftover bread
  
• protein: poached or fried egg, fish sticks
• leftovers: meat, pasta-and-sauce, cooked vegetables, whatever
  

I like to use kind of a light hand--I don't want too much stuff in my salad. Jeff tends more toward the baroque. But like most other things it's about balancing the flavors and textures. It's nice to have something crunchy, whether nuts or croutons or apples. And I like something sweet (fruit; balsamic vinegar or honey in the dressing) or mellow (avocado) to balance the acid of the dressing and the spiciness of the greens.

Don't knock the fish sticks. They make life way easier and tastier. If you need to feel classy, you can buy breaded fish fillets (that was our gateway--then we realized fish sticks, at least the better ones, are pretty much the same thing). For three nights in a row last winter we ate a salad of arugula, green apples, onions, and croutons with a honey-mustard vinaigrette and fish sticks, and it was the best meal ever, every time. Then we ran out of fish sticks.

Oh, and about the dressing. It really is a lot better if you toss the salad all together with a little dressing. I know this is easier when it's just two of us than in a family setting. It also makes it more important to be good at estimating your salad amounts, because dressed salad won't keep. But if you can manage it, it's worth it. We usually make a vinaigrette--it's easy enough, you can customize it to the salad of the day, and if you make extra you can keep in in the fridge and shake it up the next few times you have salad. I like to make it with a whisk; Jeff makes it with our wand mixer, which keeps it better emulsified (a blender would work too). You can find recipes everywhere, but here's one tutorial.

Now I must tell you another secret: carrot-ginger dressing (recipe below). Salad with this dressing becomes the best thing you could possibly imagine eating. In more than one instance I have debated with myself whether I wanted to eat more salad with this dressing, or save room for homemade ice cream. And it was not an easy call.

Jeff tells me that this dressing tastes like one served at a place called Dojo's in New York, which he ate at a lot in his vegan days and still gets quite misty over. We don't make it all the time, but when the craving hits nothing else will do. One night last week Jeff was making salad for dinner. I had fallen asleep (sometimes it gets really late when Jeff makes dinner). And Jeff did not know where to find the recipe for carrot-ginger dressing. "It's not on your blog," he said grumpily, after making a vinaigrette instead. So I am putting it on my blog so he can find it and you can too.


Carrot-ginger dressing*
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, who adapted it from Gwyneth Paltrow's detox plan
Serves 4, but you might as well double it

1 large carrot, peeled and roughly chopped
1 shallot, peeled and roughly chopped
2 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh ginger
2 tablespoons white miso
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
Sesame oil or tahini to taste (1/2 tsp to 1 T, depending on how you feel about sesame)
1/4 cup canola or neutral vegetable oil (not olive oil)
2 tablespoons water

Whiz the carrots, shallot and ginger in a blender or food processor until finely chopped. Scrape down the sides, then add the miso, vinegar and sesame oil. While the machine is running, slowly drizzle in the canola oil and the water.

Excellent on lettuce, avocado, onion, and of course potatoes. Not so great with fruity or weird things.

*Can anyone suggest a better name for this dressing? We are pretty bad at naming things; we already have "favorite fish" and "delicious oranges" in our repertoire, and this usually goes by "awesome salad dressing." Help?


Appendix: Potatoes

Here is how I roast potatoes. Cut them into cubes, if you want to make a lot, or slices, if you want to be quick. Peel them or not, as you like. Rub a cookie sheet with olive oil, put the potatoes on it, and toss with more olive oil, salt, pepper. Spread out in a single layer or close as you can get. Cover with foil. Put in oven at 400, 450 if you're in a rush. Cook about halfway (~15-30 min; less for slices) and take off foil. After ~10 min turn them over. When they're crispy enough, eat them. The best way to reheat is to stick the potatoes back in the oven or toaster oven for 10 or 15 minutes--they won't recrisp in the microwave.