Last night I dined with my neighbors, Sue and Antonio. As often happens over good food and company, the conversation was about…well… food! And why not? It’s something that we all have in common and something we all have opinions about - two essentials for lively discourse. I can’t remember how today’s mystery vegetable came up, but Antonio mentioned that knowing what it was, was a sign of culinary sophistication. AND as it happens, I had just taken this vegetable portrait thinking that there was no excuse for New Kitchen Primer readers to be caught off guard and unknowledgeable.
So, here it is. This is a shallot. Related to the ordinary onion but not ordinary at all. A shallot grows in clusters, has a finer texture and is milder and sweeter than an ordinary onion. Wonderful cooked (in South East Asian cuisines it’s often fried until brown and crispy), shallots are also great pickled or raw.
Next time you make a salad dressing, put some chopped shallots in the vinegar while you are getting out the greens. A little extra time marinating (and we are just talking about a few minutes), will make for an even ‘sweeter’ result. Add some Dijon and you will be culinary sophistication itself!
Vinaigrette with Dijon and Shallots
Wisk together or shake in a tightly covered jar the following:
- One Tablespoon (or more to taste) of minced shallot
- 2 Tablespoons of white wine vinegar (or red)
- One teaspoon (or more more to taste…you get the idea) of Dijon mustard
- 1/4 cup of olive oil…. Extra Virgin if you have it
- Salt and Pepper (yup! you guessed it) to taste
A favorite dressing of mine - though you might mention two points about it:
ReplyDeleteOne - oil and water, er, vinegar, don't mix. So to really get the most out of this dressing you should emulsify it - shake or otherwise stir the bejeezus out of it until appears mixed. At this point you are only fooled, as it is now a colloid with lots of little tiny particles of oil and vinegar swimming together - close enough to make a fine mixture, which will separate by morning...
Two - don't drown the salad with dressing - my usual mistake done in the exuberance of tasting such a fine dressing. More is not always better.
Oh and today (March 15) we started a new tradition for the day - we had Cesear Salad! (Beware the Ides of March...)
Thanks Lindsay! Glad as always that someone is reading this stuff! Yes, drowned salad, a common complaint. I need to do a post about descretion! Or TMD - Too Much Dressing! I hope you'll pardon me when I rip off your idea :)
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