The Green (Yellow, Red and Orange) Party

Yes, I can occasionally be caught live in the kitchen. Look quick.

When growing up, my dinner task was making the salad. My mom bought the goods and I prepared them to her exacting specifications. As a result, I am very, shall we say, anal about salads (as I am about most things that I care about).

A clean vegetable is a happy eater. Wash as far down as possible, wash as far up as possible, then, wash ‘possible.’ That maxim goes for many things.

Lettuce: anyone who uses iceberg lettuce in a salad should be shot. (Okay, that’s a little harsh; maybe, er, reeducated.) Use red-leaf, romaine or butter leaf lettuce or some combination thereof. Spinach is also yummy.

Croutons and bacon bits are masks for a salad prepared by a lazy salad-maker. If your ingredients are good, fresh and varied, you don’t need that caca.

Buy the right mushrooms. Get the ones that are closed at the junction between the body and the stem. Don’t buy the big ones that look like they’re more for smoking that for eating. Don’t buy them too brown. Cut the stems off but not so far down as to where you can see the inside of the body.

Use red onions and/or scallions, because they look prettier and taste better than yellow or white onions. Cut most of the flower of the scallions off because they are bland. The root is the good part.

When I’m the only one eating the salad or am sure of my audience, I will put a chopped clove of garlic and a chopped Serrano chili pepper in my salad. (You folks who are not from the south-west part of the US or are not of Mexican descent might not know what a Serrano is. It’s a little, tiny green pepper that is HOT. I like HOT.)

Two of the ingredients that my mom didn’t require, but I usually use now are: carrots and cucumbers. Yes, peeling them is a pain—and please peel the cuck—but, boy, do they give great texture and taste to the salad. Split the cuck down the middle, by the way.

Sometimes I will top the salad with canned crab. There are two places here in LA from which I've bought the crab: Food for Less and Trader Joe’s. The FFL version is cheaper and the TJ’s version is prettier, but they both taste about the same. I don’t put anything heavier than that in the salad. Chicken, beef and pork are for the main course.

No yellow, orange or white dressings should be used. Hey, if you want to hide the taste of your salad, just tear up some iceberg, chop up a big, fat tomato and pour Thousand Island all over it. Blech. I like a non-obnoxious Caesar or just some olive oil mixed with balsamic vinegar.

If you must put some seasoning on your salad, a bit of Mrs. Dash will do the trick; oh, and black pepper.

What did I forget? Tomatoes, of course, are required; cherry types cut in half (if you grow them, you’re blessed); bell pepper—green and chopped.

If you think salads are boring, you’re missing out on one of the great pleasures of eating. Time, attention and varied ingredients are all that are required. Don’t forget to make it beautiful as well. Eating is almost as much about the eye as it is about the tongue.

Burp.

Comments

[Marty]

Not only peel and dice the cukes, but remove the seeds, too. Cuke seeds are oftentimes the gas culprit in a salad.

I make cucumber salad for my wife all the time, but my part of the deal is just dicing the cucumbers and dicing about 1/4 cup of white onion. You place the diced cukes in a container, sprinkle a fair amount of kosher salt on them, and seal them up. The salt will draw all the moisture out of the cukes and you can drain this in a sink. After that, I don't what my wife does with the mixture. There's sour cream in there somewhere, but that's all I know.

[baldilocks]

Cucumber seeds don't bother me that way; sour cream does.

[Serenity]

Note to self: If I ever have Miss Baldilocks over for dinner, let her make the salad. Everything she says a person should be shot for...well, I'd be filled with holes.

ahem.

[baldilocks]

LOL!

[Geoffrey]

I'm with you. I'll switch between salad types. I love Ranch, Blue Cheese, and other white dressings. When I'm in the mood for those, I just make a crap salad to hold the dressing on.

Greens salad, not lettuce, with a nice oil and vinegar is my favorite.

[Lynn S]

No yellow, orange or white dressings should be used

What else is there? :-)
Seriously, I like blue cheese and ranch dressings; can't stand thousand Island or French. The person who invented that stuff should have been shot. I also like to try whatever weird new dressings I happen to see at the grocery store but I usually have to use it all myself because my family is not very adventurous when it comes to food. Same goes for ingredients. I mostly agree with you about the ingredients (except for the mushrooms; you can keep your fungus) but my family would act like I was trying to poison them.

[Teresa]

If you aren't using the chili's in the salad, you might want to try coating with a little olive oil and then squeezing fresh lemon over it. A variation from vinegar. Since I don't like hot stuff - I'm not sure how the 2 would mix *g*.

[Venomous Kate]

Heh. I always look forward to when Hubby's out of town so I can go back to making salads that function as a main course. Tonight's had all of the above plus a few garbanzo beans.

[Greg]

Personally, I'd really enjoy the opportunity for a good salad. The chow hall here at Camp Slayer has either cole(or kohl)slaw, carrot slaw, or chopped cucumbers for salad every day. Some limp ass leaves of iceberg, some stinky Iraqi onions and some bland and limp tomato slices for sandwiches/burgers are the only possible additions. Now, I know that those options aren't bad considering I'm in Baghdad and other guys in country have much worse for daily chow, but I'm looking forward to some fresh greens when I get home in March.

[Ginny]

Wow, you sound like a salad expert. I agree about iceburg lettuce..not good and a waste of space. Besides, if you're going to eat a salad, it might as well be nice and green, not all watery and white looking.

[feste]

I agree in the main...except when Iceberg is at it's peak in my garden...a cold crisp wedge of just-picked iceberg heart with freshly made blue cheese dressing is sublime.

I can get organic, locally grown thin-skinned, seedless, Japanese cukes so's I can use them without peeling (old Hippies do have their uses).

I have a real jones for pale baby Frisee in my greens at the moment too.

I also agree about the meat thing...except for a few paper thin slices of rosemary ham or Bresaola (cured beef) with a basalmic dressing on a bed of baby greens, thin sliced red onions and a smattering of home-cured kalamata-style olives...a little feta and you've got Nirvana-on-a-plate.

Yum...think I'll go make one right now.

[Indigo]

I'm with feste on the 'iceberg at its peak'. Also on the home-made fresh bleu cheese dressing. Sorry, Juliette. Guess I just have no class! ;^)

[Sgt Hook]

Sounds delicious! Looks like the perfect salad.

[baldilocks]

Dang, I'm hungry (again)!