Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan [257]
When washed raw greens go into a salad, they must first be shaken thoroughly dry because the water that clings to them dilutes the dressing. Salad spinners do the job, or you can wrap the greens in a large towel, gather all four corners of the towel in one hand, and give the towel several abrupt shakes over a sink.
The salad course is dressed at the table when ready to serve; it is never done ahead of time. The salad for the whole table should be in a single large bowl, with ample room in it for all the vegetables to move completely around when tossed. The components of the dressing are never mixed in advance, they are poured separately onto the salad.
First put in the salt and bear in mind that judiciousness does not mean very little salt, it means neither too much nor too little. Give the salad one quick toss to distribute the salt and begin to dissolve it, then pour in the oil liberally. From observation, I have found people outside Italy never use sufficient oil. There should be enough of it to produce a gloss on the surface of the vegetables. Add the vinegar last, just the few drops necessary to impart aroma, and never more than one skimpy part vinegar to three heaping parts oil. A little vinegar is sufficient to be noticed, a little too much monopolizes all your attention to the disadvantage of every other ingredient. Also bear in mind that the acid of vinegar, like that of lemon, “cooks” a salad, which explains why the oil is poured first, to protect the greens. As soon as you put in the vinegar, begin to toss. The more thoroughly a salad is tossed, and the more uniformly the salt, oil, and vinegar are distributed over every leaf and every vegetable, the better it will taste. Toss gently, turning the greens over delicately, to avoid bruising and blackening them.
Other seasonings Freshly squeezed lemon juice is an occasional, agreeable substitute for vinegar. It is excellent on cooked salads, such as boiled Swiss chard, which are then described as all’agro, in the tart style. Lemon is also welcome on carrots shredded very fine, or in summer on tomatoes and cucumbers.
Garlic can be exciting when you turn to it sporadically, on impulse, but on a regular basis, it is tiresome. Its presence should be an offstage one, as in the Shredded Savoy Cabbage Salad, or in the tomatoes in this recipe.
Pepper is not common. It was probably too expensive a spice originally to become part of a humble, everyday dish like salad. But if you like it, there is certainly a place for it in Italian salads, as long as it is black pepper, because it has a more complete aroma than the white.
Balsamic vinegar, however unfamiliar it may have been until recently to other Italians, has been used in Modena for centuries to lift the flavor of the basic salad dressing. But the Modenese have never used it every day, and neither would I. Its sweetness and its dense fragrance are qualities that can be called upon, from time to time, to amaze the tastebuds, but call on them too often and they become cloying. When dressing a salad, balsamic vinegar is used to enrich regular wine vinegar, not to replace it.
Either basil or parsley will do most salads some good. The uses of mint, like those of marjoram and oregano, are more limited, as the recipes in this chapter will illustrate.
Sliced onion quickens the flavor of most raw salads, particularly those with tomatoes. To blunt its sharp bite, the onion must be subjected to the following procedure, beginning 30 minutes or more before preparing the other ingredients of the salad:
• Peel the onion, slice it into very thin rings, put it in a bowl, and cover amply with cold water.
• Squeeze the rings in your