Chapter Five

Hard Times, Old Times, Good Times Salads

A salad is usually eaten before the meal, to liven the palate, and to give a fresh taste to the meal that follows. It can also give a direction to the meal, like having an Italian antipasto before an Italian meal,or a plain green tossed salad before a hearty steak and potatoes meal. Salads can also be whole meals, when you add pasta, rice, potatoes, or cooked grains. A salad can be a simple sliced homegrown tomato with a little salt and pepper, or a bowl of cucumbers with a little dill and yogurt. Whatever you want, in the heat of summer or as a first course to a winter meal, a salad can be an invention of creativity and thriftiness. Some salads can be soups, like the cold Gazpacho in another section of this book.

Green Salad

This is the best and most popular, and the easiest salad in the world.

A few hours before you want to eat the salad, slice and crumble and cut up all ingredients EXCEPT the lettuce. Put these in a bowl, toss with cheese, olive oil and vinegar. They can be any of the following:

The proportions of olive oil to vinegar or lemon juice are about two to one. The lettuce is whatever kind you like, romaine, butter, leaf, or iceberg

  1. Put the bowl in the refrigerator, covered, for the flavors to "marry".
  2. Clean the lettuce, arrange on a towel, roll up and chill.
  3. Combine just when you want to eat, toss well, add more oil and vinegar dressing if you want.
  4. Salt and pepper lightly.

Kathy Matlock's Tabooly

  1. Heat two cups of homemade chicken broth to boiling.
  2. Add one and a quarter cups of Bulghur (cracked wheat) slowly, stirring, with about a quarter of a cup of chopped onion.
  3. Simmer the wheat for about thirty minutes, drain and refrigerate until cool.
  4. In a separate bowl, combine two cups of chopped fresh tomatoes, one bunch of green onions, chopped, two cups of chopped fresh parsley, and one quarter cup of chopped fresh mint.
  5. In another small bowl beat together one half cup of olive oil, four tablespoons of lemon juice, a little salt and pepper, stir until blended. Pour over the cooled wheat, and blend well.
  6. Combine the wheat mixture with the tomato and parsley mixture, stir well.
  7. Serve this in a lettuce lined bowl, or in pita bread.

Pasta Salad

This is just a variation on the green salad, but it has more body and can be served as a light meal by itself.

  1. Cook some interesting shape of pasta, the tricolored rotini or fusilli are good since their spiral shapes hold the dressing.
  2. Make a salad dressing, recipes follow, and add whatever else you want, peppers, carrots, onions, capers, cut up leftover vegetables, hard boiled eggs, whatever your fancy, pocketbook and refrigerator have to offer.
  3. Mix all this up, add salt and pepper and chill. You can serve it in pita pockets or on lettuce.

Tomato and Basil Salad

This is a quick tasty salad in the summer, especially with fresh herbs and tomatoes.

  1. Slice a fresh tomato, preferable one from your garden, and add a handful of chopped fresh basil.
  2. Add some thinly sliced red or yellow onion, or chopped green onion.
  3. Toss with a little bit of olive oil and wine vinegar or lemon juice, salt and pepper.

Salad Dressings

There are 967 different bottled dressings on the market, some already mixed, some you mix in a little cruet with powdered herbs. Any of these will make a passable dressing, but it's more fun and cheaper and tastier to make your own. You can put the dressings in a crystal bottle or an old mayonnaise jar, whatever you have around. Some of these dressings travel well, the ones without mayonnaise, especially. We are partial to the Olive Oil School of salad dressings, anyway, partly from genetics and partly from calorie and fat concerns. Olive oil is probably the best oil around, and a first class greenish virgin oil can be used very sparingly and still taste wonderful. So buy the best you can afford, use it like a miser, and enjoy it.

Save the mayonnaise for ham sandwiches or something else.

Italian dressing

  1. Mix a little dry mustard, about a half teaspoon, with a little bit less salt, and some chopped garlic.
  2. Add four tablespoons of wine vinegar, stir.
  3. Add one half cup of olive oil, stir vigorously. Keep in a jar and use as needed.

Variation I: Use tarragon or balsamic vinegar instead of wine vinegar,but use less, or to taste. Using this basic dressing, you can add basil and oregano also.

Variation II: add two ounces of crumbled blue or Roquefort cheese to the basic dressing.

Yogurt and Cucumber Sauce

  1. Mix a cup of yogurt cheese or plain yogurt with a chopped, peeled, seeded cucumber.
  2. Add a little salt, grated onion and dried dill.
  3. Refrigerate before using. This dressing is good with any kind of meat in a pita bread with sprouts or Tabooly.

Mustard Dressing

  1. Blend together a half cup of olive oil, one eighth cup of wine vinegar, salt and pepper, one Tablespoon of a Dijon type mustard, a little oregano or other herb you like.
  2. This goes well on lots of things, chopped cooked beef or chicken, or just your usual greens. Play with the herbs and the vinegars and enjoy it.

Fruit Salad

This one is simple and delicious and good for you. You can add sweet things like Kirsch or whipped cream but we like it plain.

  1. Cut up any and every kind of fruit you can find, apples, oranges, kiwi if you like, bananas, melons, strawberries, pears, whatever.
  2. Mix it all in a big bowl, chill and serve. ItÕs great as a first course or as a dessert with a cookie. Once we served it in footed bowls with a dollop of whipped cream with a little nutmeg and cinnamon sprinkled on top. WeÕve also served it out of hollowed out cantaloupes, and in cereal bowls with corn flakes. Any way you like it, itÕs wonderful.

Antipasto

It just means 'before the pasta' but it can mean anything. It's a salad, it can be a first course, it can be the overture to a big meal. Whatever it is, antipasto is interesting. Traditionally, it's an Italian thing, olives and anchovies and capocollo, and salami and caponata. It sharpens the palate for the pasta that is to follow, and it can be served alone for a cocktail party or as a first course. It is a versatile thing, depending on who you have to feed and what your pantry looks like, and what you want to spend. Here are some combinations:

As you probably can tell, this cookbook is not traditional, in the strict sense of the word. There is tradition here, however,sometimes standing on its head. What if you fixed a Southwestern antipasto? You couldnÕt call it ÒantipastoÓ you would have to call it Òbefore the tacosÓ or antes de la cena. But it could be a small bowl of posole, a sharp dip and chip thing, guacamole, seviche, pico de gallo, little tacitos, whatever is spicy and hot and sharpens the palate for the enchiladas or the tamales. Whatever. These things are very versatile, and the Spanish call them tapas, and you can make a meal of them. There are probably 7097 different things you could serve, even those little chicken liver UFO's wrapped in bacon that livened up the Fifties. Sort of.