It's just the tip of the iceberg

Since this week we're cooking a lot during the 9 days (a period of mourning the destruction of the first and second temples) and traditionally Ashkenazi Jews don't eat meat or poultry during this time, Chef had to get creative with our schedule this week.

Yesterday and today were salad days! Now, you may ask, why two days for salads? Can't you just follow a recipe for a dressing and put some vegetables in a bowl and toss? Why, yes. Yes you can. But you can also do a ton of other things.

First things first. What is a salad? The first thing that probably comes to mind is lettuce, raw vegetables, and a dressing. That isn't wrong. But is it right? What about a fruit salad? Tuna salad? Pasta? Sushi salad? I could go on.... Potato salad? Rice? Corn? Come on, people. We can come up with more. But more importantly, can we come up with a definition of a salad? Anyone have any ideas?

Yesterday we went through some different types of salads:

• Tossed Salad- Lightly covered with an oil and vinegar dressing
• Composed Salad- Each item on the plate as its own place and is individually seasoned
• Bound Salad- Something like a tuna or egg salad that is bound by mayonnaise, yogurt, cream cheese, or sour cream, etc.

We spoke about emulsions, where two or more items that don't want to go together (like oil and vinegar) are forced together. We also went through different types of emulsions:

• Temporary emulsion- Something like a vinaigrette (2/3 oil and 1/3 vinegar) are mixed with herbs and spices and is shaken just before serving.  
• Permanent emulsion- Something like a mayonnaise or aioli. Permanent emulsions have something which holds the oil and vinegar together like egg yolks or mustard. These are whisked pretty hard in order to make it thick. The thicker it is, the more flavor you can add to it. 

When making any type of dressing, add all the other ingredients together first, and then drizzle in the oil like I did above.

We made a tossed salad yesterday, with jicama (tastes like a blend of an apple and a potato), red onion, and oranges with a poppy seed dressing. All of the ingredients were tossed together to create a great appetizer:

The martini glass rim was lightly dipped in egg whites and then dipped in poppy seeds to make this adorable presentation. Come on, how cute?

Today was about composed salads. A classic composed salad is a Salad Nicoise. In this salad, Chef told us that there are a bunch of ingredients that are a "must," such as hard boiled eggs, potatoes, tuna, green beans, red onions, olives, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Again, every component on this dish has to be seasoned or presentable on its own since the salad is not all tossed together.

Even though salads are simpler than, let's say, making pasta from scratch or making a soup or lamb chops, this is probably a plate of mine that I'm proudest of. I crusted the tuna with peppercorns and coriander seeds, got a pan white hot, drizzled oil on the tuna (not the pan) and placed the tuna, one side at a time to sear in the pan. You want your pan so hot that the tuna sizzles and whistles when it hits the pan. The potatoes and cucumbers were marinated in the vinaigrette for a few minutes, the tomatoes were cut brunoise with basil chiffonade and seasoned with salt and pepper. The green beans (which are under the tuna) were blanched in heavily salted water and shocked in an ice bath (to keep the bright green color), and the lettuce under everything was lightly tossed with the vinaigrette before everything else was placed on top.

Tip of the day: When choosing a lettuce as your base, think about the bitterness or sweetness of it and how it'll pair with your dressing. For example, our bitter lettuces are romaine, radicchio, and endive (to name a few) are paired well with a sweeter dressing, so look (or create) dressings with sugar, honey, or agave in them to help balance out the bitterness of the lettuce.