You replied, "I would like salad please."
"Okay sure. What type of dressing would you like?" asked the waiter.
"Ummm..."
Do you ever have that moment when you contemplate on what salad dressing you should choose? I know I do. This is why in this blog, I will be explaining about dressings and how you can also make them using the information I read from the book, All New Joy of Cooking, by Irma S Rombauer, Marion Rambauer, and Ethan Becker.
In my opinion, salad dressing is best described as an uncooked sauce to enhance the flavor of the food. It does not matter if the dressing is plain or fancy, salad dressing is a balancing act. Generally, no one wants a salad soaked in dressing or a salad that barely has dressing or taste at all. Salad dressing should have enough body to lightly coat the salad but never be heavy that the greens collapse under its weight.
About Dressings:
"The easiest way to dress a salad is to simply add oil or vinegar or citrus juice directly in with the greens and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper" (Becker and Rombauer 234). This is great advice because by doing this, the salad will not be drowning in dressing or lacking of it. It creates a well-trained sense of proportion.
"More cooks prefer to make up a dressing before hand so that its flavors are more thoroughly blended and so that the oil-acid balance can be more easily adjusted if necessary" (Becker and Rombauer 234). I do not agree with this theory because I hypothesize that the dressing will just stay at the bottom and will not dress the salad as much. By putting it afterwards, there is more chances that the dressing will juice directly in with the greens.
In the pictures I took above, I show how the left dressing is preferably a better choice in the kind of salad that will not drown in flavor. However, the right dressing will most likely be more thick and soak the salad greens.
What is your favorite type of dressing? Have you ever experienced the awkward moment of debating which type of salad dressing? Do you use salad dressing for anything other than salad?
Bombauer, Irma Von Starkloff. Joy Of Cooking / All New All Purpose. NY, NY: Scribner, 1997. Print.
https://www.litehousefoods.com/
Hi Jade! I have two different types of favorite salad dressings. One of them is a vinegar type and the other is the regular thick kind. I like using raspberry vinegar salad dressing if I want a light salad. But if I want a more thicker type of salad, I'll use the thousand island salad dressing :)
ReplyDeleteHi Divine! Thank you for commenting! I can tell you have a great style of salad dressing! I am not very picky on my type of dressing but the dressings you mentioned sound delicious! I am also very surprised how you prefer your salad to be thick. Can I ask why?
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