Green salad - my Elizabeth David crimes
"It is not the more complicated dishes that one has to worry about, it is the simple ones. A perfect green salad is one of the most difficult to achieve in its perfect simplicity." Robert Carrier
I think I have described before how my French teenage holidays opened my eyes to green salad. Prior to that we had eaten a sort of mixed salad at home - lettuce, tomatoes, spring onions, cucumber and maybe radish - all dressed with revolting salad cream or malt vinegar and sugar. it wasn't my favourite dish and truth to tell I am still not a huge salad fan. Mixed salads that is. But, as I say, my trips to France opened my eyes to the idea of having a simple green salad, on its own, after the main course and before the cheese, as a sort of palate cleanser. And the dressing! Wow to my thirteen year old eyes.
Monsieur used to make the salad dressing and (I think) this is the salad dressing that I still make. I say 'I think' because, as I have said many times before the dishes we cook all the time gradually evolve over the years into something quite different to the original. My recipe for vinaigrette is a salad spoonful of extra virgin olive oil, about a third of said spoonful of white wine vinegar, a sprinkle of white pepper, a small - and I mean small - amount of mustard powder and a crushed small clove of garlic. This is all made in the bowl and left for a quarter of an hour or so whilst I finish cooking the main dish, because although I at least eat it after the main dish, I put it on the table at the same time. The salad leaves are put in the bowl balanced on the spoons and tossed at the very last minute with said spoons before eating. David sometimes has the salad with his main dish - depending on what it is, and always has some shaved or grated parmesan on top. Not very French.
As I wrote that I saw that in at least two instances I have veered away from the original. Monsieur chopped his garlic very fine, not crushed in a garlic press and the vinegar was red wine vinegar. I do not remember the proportions - it was probably 3 to 1. And the lettuce would not have been Iceberg - which is what we have most frequently. Though, alas I cannot remember what kind it was.
It probably came from the kitchen garden and I do remember that it was washed because I can see in my mind's eye Madame leaning over the balcony and vigorously waving the salad shaker to and fro. I was so impressed by this that I bought one of these salad shakers for myself. I still have it.
A friend of ours who had joined us on one of our French holidays had another method. He wrapped it in a tea towel and swung it around vigorously. It was very effective. And sometimes I do that as a final attempt at drying the leaves.
I mostly make my salad from the much maligned Iceberg lettuce which I love. It's crunchy and I actually do think that it has a very distinctive taste. It is not tasteless as everybody seems to think. However, when it gets pricey I sometimes buy other kinds - cos being the preferred, followed by one of those hydroponic varieties. Though I do remember going through a phase of using endive - which I still like. I never buy those packets. And now I also have the luxury of some softer lettuces in my veggie patch - at the moment rapidly going to seed, so I should plant some more. I never wash Iceberg - you really don't need to but I do wash all the other kinds because they often have bits of dirt clinging to them. Hence the need for the salad shaker or a tea towel. Then I wrap in a tea towel (maybe the one I shook it in) and put it in the fridge for at least half an hour.
"a salad needs bite, crunchiness and some substance. Yes, there are leaves that make good salads, but there are now too many kinds of designer leaves grown, bought and used merely for their looks. That's OK up to a point - we can all appreciate a pretty garnish of colourful leaves - but delicate leaves that get soggy when they'r washed, before being packed in plastic bags, and just disintegrate once they meet with a dressing are, in in my opinion, to be avoided (except for garnishing)." Delia Smith
And according to Tony Naylor radicchio - which you will see above - has no real place in a salad because it is too bitter. Not sure I agree about that but it's a valid opinion. He's also very definite about no spring onions.
So that's me. Here is what Elizabeth David had to say on the subject in her lovely little book Summer Cooking. I am quoting it in full because it is so Elizabeth David. Bossy, snobby and yet so helpful.
"Wash the lettuce. (Ideally of course it should not be washed at all, but each leaf wiped with a clean damp cloth.) [Wash] under a running cold tap; don’t leave it to soak. Drain it in a wire salad basket, or a colander, or shake it in a clean teacloth in which it can then be hung up to dry; or it can be put, still wrapped in its cloth, into a refrigerator until half an hour before it is to be served (don’t put a freshly picked garden lettuce in the refrigerator, but it will do no harm to the average bought lettuce). The salad dressing can be prepared beforehand, and when it is time to mix the salad, do it gently, taking your time, and ensuring that each leaf has its proper coating of oil. The most effective way of mixing a green salad is with your hands.
The French dressing most commonly used consists of 3 parts oil to 1 of vinegar, but to my mind this is far too vinegary, and seldom use less than 6 times as much oil as vinegar. Tarragon-flavoured wine vinegar makes the best dressing. First-class olive oil is of course essential, and given this, the flavour of the lettuce and the oil, with a little salt and garlic, is quite enough to make a perfect salad without any further seasoning. The grotesque prudishness and archness with which garlic is treated in this country has led to the superstition that rubbing the bowl with it before putting the salad in gives sufficient flavour. It rather depends whether you are going to eat the bowl or the salad. If you like the taste of garlic but don’t actually wish to chew the bulb itself, crush it with the point of a knife (there is really no necessity to fuss about with garlic presses and such devices unless you wish to intensify and concentrate the acrid-tasting oils in the garlic instead of dispersing them), put it in the bowl in which the dressing is to be mixed, add the other ingredients and stir vigorously. Leave it to stand for an hour and by that time the garlic will have flavoured the oil, and it can be left behind when the dressing is poured on to the salad. ...” Elizabeth David
As you can see I sin in several different ways:
I use far too much vinegar
I use the wrong vinegar
I use a garlic press and therefore I do not remove the garlic before serving. My salads are garlicky - like the ones I ate in France. Robert Carrier incidentally does the same as Elizabeth David but he also rubs the salad bowl with cut garlic - so he's a criminal too. But then I don't think those two ever saw eye to eye.
I don't wash the lettuce - but then she probably despises Iceberg lettuce
I add mustard - which she doesn't seem to mention - I think it not only adds to the flavour but also emulsifies the oil and vinegar more. Besides my French teachers did.
I put fresh salad leaves in the fridge - those from the garden that is. My excuse is that I need to pick them when they are ready, even if I am not
I do not wash my lettuce as a rule and I would certainly not consider wiping each leaf with a damp cloth
I don't mix the salad with my hands
And it is interesting, that had I not gone to France and learnt to make vinaigrette there I would probably have turned to Elizabeth David and my salad dressing would now be different. Mind you if I hadn't gone to France and wanted to reproduce the food at home I probably would not have come across Elizabeth David.
It's a very simple dish and Elizabeth David echoes Robert Carrier in that - simple but difficult at the same time.
“It seems to me that there are only three absolutely essential rules to be observed: the lettuce must be very fresh; the vinegar in the dressing must be reduced to the absolute minimum’ the dressing must be mixed with the lettuce only at the moment of serving." Elizabeth David
But people can't stop messing can they? I think the sort of inspiration for this post was the latest Woolworth's Fresh Magazine that had an amazing number of salads in it. Well I guess it is summer. To be fair they were virtually all main meals in themselves and therefore were somewhat more complicated. Personally, although I can see the health benefits, even admire the combinations that come up, I'm not really a fan of any mixed salad - salades composée. There's too much effort involved in eating them it seems to me. That said I do like a good Caesar salad, and maybe a Salade Niçoise too. I'll eat them but it's never my first choice as a main dish. No - give me a simple green salad as a palate cleanser and I'm happy.
"In its most basic form (mixed leaves, dressing), this salad can be a startlingly layered and cohesive dish, in terms of its textures and flavours. It is simultaneously silky, crunchy, clean, mustardy, sharp, mined with herbal bursts of, say, sweet anise; while the citrusy, garlicky vinaigrette adds its own spritzy flourish. That equilibrium is easily disturbed if you start throwing bullying spring onions in there" Tony Naylor - The Guardian
So I was somewhat disappointed in my search for an image of a simple green salad. Feed 'green salad' into Google Images and there are no pictures of a simple green salad, even if you add the word salad, or, say, lettuce salad. Some of them were not even very green. Others obviously thought that a green salad was just an excuse to assemble a whole lot of green things together. The simplest picture I could find of an Iceberg salad was this one:
Maybe food stylists find it difficult to arrange Iceberg lettuce leaves artistically. This salad is pretty but it has a Green Goddess dressing (not sure what that is but will look into it) and is sprinkled with nuts and things, and the lettuce is cut into wedges which would make it more of a chore to eat.
And Nigella also seems to be with me on this, even though I am pretty sure she has a large number of recipes for mixed salads. Still this is what she says:
"There is something depressingly institutional about cheerfully mixed salads." Nigella Lawson
And there are an increasing number of them on your supermarket shelves already semi-prepared, from a simple mix of salad ingredients, to a pack that includes, some cooked meat or fish and a dressing that you pour over the prepared veggies. I hate those prepared salad things. If they are shredded or torn they will all be brown at the edges, if they are still together you have to go through and take off all the thick stems that you don't want to eat, if they are dressed already they will be soggy. And I have yet to taste a bottled salad dressing that tastes good. If you know of one do let me know.
But there are others who really go to extremes and don't like salad at all:
“A handful of lettuce leaves contains negligible nutritive benefit; the dressing adds nothing beyond lubrication. The whole is designed as a salve to the conscience, not a joy to the palate.” Tim Hayward
No, no, no. They at least contain folate and fibre - both necessary things and they are a real joy to the palate, particularly if served after your main dish. So I will end with one of those kind of 'back to the future' kind of quotes that dates back to the 1600s.
“In the composure of a salad, every plant should come in to bear its part, without being overpowered by some herb of a stornger taste ... but fall into their places, like the notes in music, in which there should be nothing harsh or grating.” John Evelyn
Which applies equally to the fashionable mixed salads of today and the classic green salad that dates back who knows how long. At least back to the Romans I would guess.
So simple - or different? The one on the right is from Donna Hay. Its called Apple, cucumber and witlof slaw with buttermilk dressing. Looks beautiful - but would it taste as good as the fairly simple green salad on the left - the closest I could find to my own.
