Photo By Antonis Achilleos
|
Salad Days
By Monica Bhide, September & October 2006
Gardens are overflowing with fresh fruits and vegetables at this time of year. Learn what to do with them all
|
You've been tending your vegetable crop all summer—watering, weeding, lovingly caring for your tomatoes, peppers, peas,
eggplants, and squashes—and now, finally, the fruits of your labor have come in. Or maybe ye of the ungreen thumb crowd have instead been wandering the farmers' markets, salivating over all the greens (and reds and yellows). But how to put them all together? The answer: healthy, hearty salads.
Salads are the ultimate comfort food as summer gives way to fall. There's always plenty of fresh produce to choose from—whether from your own garden or the farmers' market. And there's no need to spend hours in the kitchen, as long as your produce is fresh and ripe. "The better tasting an ingredient is, the less time you have to spend trying to make it taste good," says Annie Wayte, author of Keep It Seasonal: Soups, Salads, and Sandwiches (William Morrow, 2006). "The ingredients speak for themselves."
Here, then, are a few tips for making the perfect salad, with a couple of recipes to get you started:
Venture beyond iceberg
Local farmers' markets often offer multiple kinds of greens, such as endives, escaroles, arugulas, maches, and sorrels. Try mixing a few of these with some fresh tomatoes from your garden and a little olive oil for a simple but scrumptious salad.
Think pairings
Some foods naturally taste great when served together: tomatoes and cheese, corn and bell peppers, potatoes and herbs. A simple salad might include just those pairings, or you can use them as a base upon which to experiment with new flavors.
Be adventurous
"One of the beauties of summer produce is the variety—not just the different types of produce but the variety of one particular fruit or vegetable," Wayte says. For example, summer squashes come in a range of colors and flavors. For that matter, so do eggplants. "There are so many varieties with differing amounts of sweet and bitter flavors. Bake them in the oven, then scrape out the flesh and purée with yogurt, lemon, garlic, cilantro, and chile for a great hors d'oeuvre."
Keep dressings balanced
There's a saying that it takes four people to dress a salad: a wise one to add the salt, a mad one for the pepper, a miser for the vinegar, and a spendthrift for the oil. Dressings shouldn't overpower the salad; fresh produce needs no strong embellishment anyway.
Go herbal
Fresh herbs can jazz up a dish with literally no effort. Experiment with various herb combinations to see what works best. And don't forget edible flowers. "I love to make an edible-flower salad with beautiful greens and herbs," Wayte says.
|
