Contents
The mood is frivolous, so today we are going to talk frivolously, without fuss and aprons. Those who are embarrassed to cook without looking at the recipe will be interested (perhaps), I’m not sure about the rest, we’ll figure it out. So, let’s say you come home from work and find that there is nothing to eat in the house, and all the cookbooks have been devoured by a moth. And outside the window, a blizzard and wolves howl. Although no, we will not complicate it – there are no wolves, books with recipes and the Internet, too, but there is a certain set of products from which you need to make something edible, and preferably tasty and uncomplicated. Let’s say salad.
How to invent a salad from scratch if you’ve always cooked according to someone else’s recipes? Very simple: let’s pretend that the salad is a constructor. I am not saying that you will make absolutely any salad from this constructor, but I promise that you will get something decent.
Greens
How to invent a salad from scratch if you’ve always cooked according to someone else’s recipes? Very simple: let’s pretend that the salad is a constructor. I do not claim that you will make absolutely any salad from this constructor, but I promise that you will get something decent. The first detail of our constructor is salad greens.
It is quite possible to prepare a salad without it, but no one will argue that salad leaves are bright, fresh and healthy. If possible, it is better to buy salad greens in advance and store them in a closed container, where they will last for a week. There are many varieties of lettuce available now: I advise you to read my article on the variety of lettuce leaves to get an idea of what their taste is like.
Vegetables and fruits
Vegetables and their smaller brothers, fruits are the main part of the salad if you cook it without greens, and auxiliary, if you still have greens. In the salad, you can use fresh vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, onions, etc.), blanched or boiled (green beans, broccoli, potatoes, beets, carrots, etc.), baked or fried (peppers, eggplant , zucchini, etc.), pickled (olives, peas, capers, peppers, etc.).
Some vegetables can be cooked in different ways (beets and potatoes, for example, you can either boil or bake), for some this factor depends on the season (young carrots or broccoli are chic fresh, more mature vegetables are better to blanch slightly). In any case, one or two vegetables in a salad are essential. More – only if you are sure that it will not upset the balance of the flavors of your salad.
Carbohydrates
In fact, vegetables and fruits are also sources of carbohydrates, so in this category we will include only what did not fall into the previous one: rice and other cereals, pasta, and so on. The general rule, which is full of exceptions, sounds like this: either this or green. I admit that noodle salad can be delicious, but it is unlikely to benefit from the addition of rocket salad or lettuce. If you want something green, use vegetables and herbs like parsley or cilantro.
Proteins
Protein is why men eat salad. They are interested in your arugula with cherry tomatoes insofar as, but the protein component of the salad is everything. In short, protein can be:
- meat – chicken, grilled or boiled, fried beef or pork, ham, bacon, sausage, and so on. A great solution is to use the baked chicken or lamb leftovers from yesterday’s dinner. In any case, the meat should be cut into thin slices – this is how its texture will most advantageously appear in the salad.
- fish – smoked, salted or canned. The first two are cut into slices, the third is carefully disassembled into fibers. Boiled or fried fish, in my opinion, are not very good in a salad, but with the remnants of a baked fish it is quite possible to portray something. Seafood stands apart, for example, crabs and their sticks, shrimps, mussels, scallops, and so on: fresh can be fried, and canned can be eaten as is.
- cheese – as an auxiliary protein for greater savoryness, or as the main protein so that everyone understands that you are a delicate thing. In the second case, take the most decent cheese and do not forget to balance it with something – for example, fruits and berries work well in a salad with blue cheese.
- eggs – hard-boiled, soft-boiled or even poached eggs.
- mushrooms – as well as other vegetable proteins such as tofu.
trifle
This includes everything that is added to the salad not for volume, but for easy modification of its taste, texture or appearance: nuts and seeds, crackers, spices and herbs, herbs and other small surprises. In a salad, a trifle is not necessary, but desirable, since it becomes more interesting and lively with it.
Sophistication
Delicacies include non-trivial ingredients that require preliminary preparation and are designed to make the salad more unusual, complex, and delicious, of course. For example, fresh onion in a salad is a vegetable, and onion marmalade is a delicacy. We will consider delights to be a complex ingredient that is accessible only to subtle, creative people.
Filling
Please, before reading further, go to the kitchen, open the refrigerator, get the mayonnaise out of there and throw it in the trash can. Okay, let’s continue then. The dressing is the cement for the salad, the link between all its ingredients. If you come up with an original and unusual dressing, you can invent a salad “around” it, but in general, first it is better to figure out what the salad will consist of, and only then fantasize about the dressing.
The simplest dressing – a mixture of vegetable oil and vinegar or lemon juice – works almost everywhere. Salads featuring baked or boiled meat benefit from mustard dressings, the shrimp in the salad is surprisingly fond of cream dressings, and if your salad uses salted, smoked, or jerky meat, add honey to the dressing. Of course, mayonnaise can also act as a dressing if there are a lot of dry, fresh ingredients in the salad, but let it be homemade mayonnaise, not a store-bought one. I wrote in more detail on the topic of dressings in the article Dressings for salads.
Balance
Salad creativity is based on the search for a delicate balance. It will be easier for techies – they know what a “center of mass” is, and so with salads, it’s about the same. The ideal salad is one dominated by two or three main flavors that balance each other. It is no coincidence that salads are so popular, where sweet is adjacent to salty (pear with gorgonzola, melon with ham, apple with herring), minor ingredients can also contribute. A surefire way for beginners is to exploit the classic product combinations we’ve collected from all over the world.
We make the equation
So, how do you invent a salad? At the beginning of this article, I wrote that cooking a salad is like assembling a constructor. Knowing what details are included in the designer, and what principles should be followed when combining them, you will prepare countless salads. Common sense dictates that:
- if there are more than six ingredients (including dressing), this is already too much;
- there should be no more than two ingredients of the same type in a salad, a maximum of three;
- carbohydrates and proteins in total should also not be more than two, maximum three;
- if greens and vegetables are less than carbohydrates and proteins, this is no longer a salad, but a monument to gluttony.
Here are some beginner templates.
Salad “Health”Formula:vegetable + vegetable + dressingvegetable + vegetable + dressing Examples: cabbage + carrot + olive oil
tomato + cucumber + sour cream
broccoli + carrots + yogurtLight saladFormula:greens + vegetable + dressinggreens + vegetable + dressing Examples: rucola + cherry tomatoes + olive oil
lettuce + cucumber + sunflower oil
Salad “I’m strong at my grandmother’s”Formula:vegetable + vegetable + carbohydrate + protein + protein + dressingvegetable + vegetable + carbohydrate + protein + protein + dressing Examples: bell pepper + cucumber + pasta + bacon + cheese + mayonnaise
boiled potatoes + boiled carrots + rice + crab sticks + mushrooms + mayonnaise
“It’s Complicated” saladFormula:salad + vegetable + vegetable + protein + trifle + dressingsalad + vegetable + vegetable + protein + small change + dressing Examples: rucola + cherry + avocado + salted salmon + sesame seeds + vinaigrette dressing
Swiss chard + beets + oranges + goat cheese + pumpkin seeds + vinaigrette dressing Submit your formulas for the perfect salad and feel free to check out my Recipe Catalog!