Salad dressings - general principles and methods of cooking
The sauce can make the most simple and uncomplicated salad a real masterpiece, a unique and inimitable dish. The long and colorful history of salad sauces begins in the ancient world and continues to this day. It has been established that sauces not only emphasize the natural taste of products, but also protect the beneficial substances of its components from destruction, enveloping the products with the thinnest film of fat. Vitamins, magically protected from oxygen, are not destroyed. The dish remains useful for a long time. Even a few drops of vegetable oil, added to the salad immediately after cutting, allow you to save more vitamin C.
Dressing and salad dressings are divided into two types. Some of them are made on the basis of a mixture of oil and acidic products. It can be various options of vinegar, lemon or berry juice and vegetable oil. Most often they are used for light summer vegetable salads with an abundance of greenery. Another option: thick sauces, more nutritious, made on the basis of cream, sour cream, egg yolks. Together with them, meat, poultry, fish or boiled winter vegetables are easier to digest.
Salad dressings - food preparation
The basis of any dressing is usually vegetable oil or dairy products. Additives can serve as mustard, vinegar, lemon or other fruit juices, honey, finely chopped greens, and various spices. Often used a small amount of alcohol, as a rule, it is a homemade wine with a deep taste. Only a few movements - and a good dressing will completely change the taste of the dish, make it tastier and more aromatic. Salad Sauces - The Best Recipes
Recipe 1: Salad Dressing - Mayonnaise
Store mayonnaise may even be tasty, but not to bring any benefit - only extra calories and harmful food additives. Whether the case - a real homemade sauce. Homemade mayonnaise cooked in a blender is gentle and airy, appetite stimulating and very healthy.
Ingredients: Eggs (1 pc), olive oil (225 g), dry mustard (1 h. Spoon), sugar (1 h. Spoon), salt, white pepper, lemon juice (1-2 h. Spoons ).
Method of preparation
Of course, it is best to mix the mixture with a blender, the main thing is to take products at room temperature and add them in a certain order. First, break an egg into a cup, add mustard, sugar, salt, a little olive oil. Beat, pour in a thin stream half the remaining olive oil and lemon juice. Another minute - and add the remaining oil, whisk until the mixture thickens.
Homemade mayonnaise is good because its taste can be enhanced by various additives. For example, add 100 grams of pounded with a small amount of nut butter - we get unsurpassed nut mayonnaise. Or another option - mayonnaise for raw foodists: we add to our base 1 teaspoon of grated onion, 1-2 cloves of garlic and a bit of green juice - topped radish or turnip. Use this beauty immediately after preparation.
Recipe 2: Italian Pesto Sauce
This very popular green sauce is originally from Italy. Italians use it not only in salads, but also for fish, meat or spaghetti.
Ingredients: Basil (4 bunches), Parmesan (or any hard cheese, 100 grams), garlic (5 cloves), pine nuts (150 grams), salt, vegetable oil.
Method of preparation
Wash and dry the basil, chop finely. We rub cheese on a small grater. Heat the nuts in a frying pan and cool. Combine everything in a blender and whisk until fine crumb, salt, add small portions of vegetable oil. Beat until pasta. There is a small secret for storing the sauce: in order for it to stand in the refrigerator for a long time, we transfer it to the jar and pour vegetable oil a little above the level, about 2 cm.
Recipe 3: French Sauce
Probably not in the world more popular salad dressings than the French sauce. The most uncomplicated products in a harmonious combination give a wonderful taste, and if you enhance it with the help of flavored vinegar, you can truly achieve a stunning result. You can change and adapt this sauce to your liking, but remember the main thing: carefully dose the spices so that you only enhance and not interrupt the basic taste of the salad ingredients.
Ingredients: fresh lemon juice (or wine vinegar, 1/3 cup), olive oil, preferably cold pressed (1 cup), garlic (4 cloves), salt, ground pepper, spicy mustard (you can mustard powder , 2 tsp.).
Method of preparation
Mix lemon juice in a deep bowl with olive oil, using a whisk. Add the remaining components, mix and pour into a beautiful bottle with a wide neck. This sauce can be stored in the refrigerator for a long time, insisting that its taste only improves. An hour before use, take it out of the refrigerator, mix well and let stand at room temperature. Quite a bit of French sauce can turn your salad into an appetizing and easily digestible product.
But the French homemade sauce would not be so practical, if it could not be changed and modified. At this time we will do this “focus” - add 1 grated onion of shallot and a half of red onion + one spoonful of honey. Replace wine vinegar with a rarer, balsamic - we get a completely new taste, spicy, delicate, soft, giving mystery to our salads and charm.
Recipe 4: Curd Sauce
Fruit salads also require a sauce, which will give harmony to the usual sliced pieces and combine them into a single, self-contained ensemble. For this purpose, the gentle and airy, sweet curd sauce fits perfectly. Ingredients: cottage cheese (200 g), milk (1 cup), sugar, salt.
Method of preparation
Pound the cottage cheese with a wooden spoon. Grainy curd wipe through a sieve, add milk and sugar. The amount of milk is determined by the fat content of the curd. For dry curd liquid will need a little more.
And now let's give vent to fantasy: spice and piquancy can be added with a pinch of cumin and mustard, tenderness and taste - with vanilla sugar. Would you like to enhance the fruity taste? Add some orange juice or grapefrukta; all means are good to achieve the desired effect.
Salads sauces - useful tips from experienced chefs
- Dissolve the salt beforehand in a little water or wine, add other ingredients one by one - the taste of the sauce will be more even.
- It is advisable to replace wine vinegar with fruit, and even better with lemon juice. Regular vinegar can be diluted with wine and water at the rate of 2: 1: 1.
- Salad sauces for protein foods are made from vegetable oil, cream, herbs and lemon juice. Dairy products (kefir, yogurt, yogurt) are more suitable for carbohydrate foods.
