dressing up salad

Well hello there!  I have to admit, I feel a bit more like E.T. phoning home with each update.  My sincere thanks to you for sticking by me and checking in here even when I don't.  It means a lot to me even though I don't always show it with more updates.  Turns out you don't cook as many homemade dinners when you have five 2:30-11:00pm shifts a week and catch up on school and scholarship applications in the meantime (ok, and Top Chef and The Mindy Project; sue me).




Now that I'm here, though, let's talk salads.  I've been making them at work for the last two months, so I thought it might be fun to write a treatise of sorts on them.  (...I just said "fun to write a treatise" as a thing.  You can judge.)  Not that I'm an expert salad maker by any means, or even an expert salad eater (excess mac and cheese consumption is much more up my alley), but I have some suggestions to offer that encourage me, and may encourage you, to eat more of that "green stuff" at home.  No longer should salads be confined within the sad bars of iceberg, olives, and delusional ladles of ranch.  It's just not fair to them.  Or us.

Because when it comes to eating salads more often, unless you're that girl/guy who snacks on raw veggies in sincere enjoyment, it'll only happen if they're interesting.  And in my opinion, a salad can be made so in one (or all) of these ways:

1. Color
It's true.  You eat with your eyes first, and one of the first things your eyes "taste" is color.  Try starting with the greens - I like mixing light greens like romaine or butter lettuce with dark ones like spinach or arugula, or even red kale when I can get my hands on some. With the toppings, I'll add reds, yellows and greens, and purple when I can.  Browns and whites (like nuts and cheese), while not interesting colors in themselves, are helpful in providing subtle to stark contrast with everything else.  Nature makes it pretty effortless to get colorful, as you can see below:

colorful food makes me happy

2. Texture
Doritos, Coca-Cola and Lucky Charms Cereal.  What do these junk foods have in common?  They're all engineered to be addictive, largely due to a "powerful sensory force that food scientists call 'mouth feel.'"  Scary, right?  So if a salad is ever to beat the odds of Cool Ranch and Nacho Cheesier, each bite needs to be an adventure in texture.  Make it fun for your mouth to eat!  Here are some ideas to get you brainstorming.  Chewy: raisins, dried apricots, cranberries, sundried tomatoes.  Crispy: romaine hearts, bacon pieces, blanched haricot verts, sweet peppers, radishes, pickled red onions, toasted coconut shavings.  Crunchy: roasted (and/or candied) nuts, carrots, jicama, apples, fried tortilla strips, croutons (which could be a list in itself: sourdough, french bread, focaccia, pita, cornbread).  Juicy: grilled corn kernels, blueberries, pomegranate seeds, tomatoes.  Creamy: cheeses, steamed potatoes, beans.  Hard-boiled eggs.  Soft-boiled eggs.  Sunny-side-up eggs.  Poached eggs.  I'm sure I didn't hit every texture profile there is, but don't those endless possibilities and combinations sound better than stale marshmallows already?

the danger and ease of a mandolin makes for a love-hate relationship

3. Cooperative Flavors
So far we know a salad should be pretty and texturally varied - but if it's not good, who cares, right?   Remember that just because each ingredient in itself is "good" doesn't always mean they'll all be good together.  I like raspberries and garlic roasted tomatoes, but in the same salad?  No, thank you.  I'm usually a fan of sweet and savory, but certain flavors like each other better.  For example, I love when the sweetness of fruits is accented by something pickled and toned down by something creamy, or when the subtle sweetness of tomatoes or corn balance out a more savory salad.  It also helps to have a certain flavor profile in mind, like southwestern, Greek or "Asian" (which of course in America is usually some nebulous combination of "Chinese" and "Thai"), for example.

a Moroccan spice blend for roasted chickpeas, a fun salad topper

4. Punches of Flavor
Every salad needs a little hit of acid, whether it's from pickled red onions (my personal favorite), pomegranate seeds,  tart berries, or even something as simple as lemon juice.  Usually the dressing takes care of this, but not always (as demonstrated from some of the previous examples).  At work, mandarin oranges in our Asian Chicken Salad, the balsamic marinated mushrooms in our Mediterranean salad, and pineapple salsa in our Steak Salad provide big flavor contrasts and help wake everything else up.

5. Protein
Lastly, there's no point in eating a salad if you still crave a burger afterwards.  When I can't afford the time or budget to add real meat to my salads, I'll use vegetarian sources of protein like nuts, cheese, or beans (I particularly like white, edamame and garbanzo, which you can also roast to a crunch).  Sometimes I use quinoa or marinated baked tofu when I have more time.

a salad I packed for work once upon a healthier time, with aforementioned tofu

As a final example, here's my own salad interpretation (and a sort-of-recipe) that keeps those five elements in mind, along with their roles in parentheses:
- 16 oz. butter lettuce (light green, crisp, mild)
- a 16 oz. mixture of arugula, baby spinach, and baby chard (dark green, spicy, bitter)
- 1 bunch radishes, sliced thinly on a mandolin (red and white, crispy, spicy)
- candied walnuts (brown, crunchy, sweet, nutty, protein)*
- big handful boiled edamame (light green, nutty, protein)
- 4 roasted golden beets, peeled and medium diced (golden, juicy, sweet, earthy)*
- golden raisins (golden, chewy, sweet)
- big handful of pomegranate seeds (dark red, crispy, juicy, tart)
- about 4 oz. crumbled goat cheese, not pictured (white, creamy, tangy, protein)
- blood orange dijon vinaigrette (tart, sweet, salty, spicy)



As you can see, most (if not all) the ingredients here are serving around three purposes at once.  I also repeated the same colors - greens, yellows, and reds - to make it visually cohesive.  (Did I just say "visually cohesive"?  Since when did salads get so technical?  Oh right, when I decided it would be fun to write a treatise of sorts on them, that's when.)  It was served with this hearty lentil soup and my friend's delicious roasted potatoes, but with the three sources of protein, it also could have held its own as a meal.  I won't say it was a perfect salad, but it was voraciously consumed by people I love with no complaints, which is all you can really ask for.



[By the way, literally a day after I made this salad, we added a new one at work with romaine, arugula, toasted almonds, roasted beets, fennel, pomegranate, avocado and crumbled feta in a blood orange vinaigrette.   The similarities are uncanny.  I think we're on the same page, or at least the same chapter, of what makes a salad worth eating. :) ]

the salad at work - pretty, right?

I wouldn't be surprised if by this point you think I'm either 1) crazy, 2) pretentious or 3) both for writing FOUR paragraphs about building a salad.  (To quote a friend: "Salads are easy.  Lettuce and ranch.") But hey, if it helped or inspired you at ALL to view salads with more anticipation, or better yet, eat one in the near future, I'll take all three gladly.  I really will.