The Deconstructed Salad
Tuesdays are meatless Tuesdays. Try cutting down on eating red meat, and eventually, try cutting down on any animal flesh for Tuesdays this summer (and maybe the rest of the year). So, in trying to honor Meatless Tuesdays, I planned to have a salad.
Unfortunately, I woke up later than I wanted to so I had only a few minutes to spare to make a salad. Not really, but I'm trying to get to work early to make these 11 hour days bearable: walk in at 7 AM and out at 6 PM a reasonable day! I have to put together a salad in a short time.
I start making the salad backwards. The toppings go in before the actual lettuce. First, comes plum tomatoes. I get a handful, wash them, then plop them into my salad bowl. Next, comes onions which I take 1/8th of a red onion and chop roughly. I had some fresh cilantro in the fridge, so I coarsely chop a small bunch of stalks and throw that into the mix. Finally, I break out some feta cheese and crumble it into the bowl. I salt and pepper this mixture then toss.
Now for the lettuce, I take and quarter a head of iceberg. I don't throw this into the bowl and call it a day, but wash it out, because I think that you need to wash your lettuce. I wash the quartered leaves spin them dry which breaks them into several big leaves. I stuff this into the bowl, and call it a day. I believe it took about few minutes to do this all.
So, it's a deconstructed salad; it hasn't been mixed up yet. The leaves of lettuce just sitting with the toppings mix which I will be mixed at lunch with some leftover blue cheese dressing from the buffalo wings last week. It maybe not a truly deconstructed what with the mixing of the toppings, but I'm just calling it that for fun.
6 Replies to “The Deconstructed Salad”
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sounds good. I've made the same salad with almonds, walnuts or black olives for protein.
Cilantro and feta sounds interesting as a combination. How'd it taste?
your cilantro got me thinking of what I'd want to put on my salad and i found this cool recipe:
Bob's Fabulous Yummy Marinade
from More Recipes from a Kitchen Garden by Shepherd & Raboff
This marinade can be used to marinate tofu and meats, as a sauce for noodles or rice, and as a dressing for a green salad.
5 T vegetable oil
1/3 cup packed fresh cilantro with stems
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1/4 cup tamari soy sauce
1 ounce fresh ginger (about an inch of it?), cut into six 1/4 inch slices
6 large cloves garlic
1 1/2 T ground cumin
1 small jalapeno or other chili (optional)
Combine and blend all ingredients together in a food processor or blender until the chili, garlic, ginger and cilantro are finely chopped.
The cilantro/feta tastes just as you would imagine. It certainly was different, but I doubt I would do that again.
The marinade looks good; I'll keep it in mind if I want to do some grilled chicken. Not sure about it as a salad dressing, because I'm just an oil vinegar person.
i did not know that cilantro was coriander. still learning spices myself really. but it's fun. feel like a witch in the kitchen with spices, but in a good way.
also i love ginger dressing. It's my favorite for salads when i eat out at japanese restaurants.
I love that ginger dressing, too! I wish I knew how they make it. I tried once, but failed because I didn't really use the pickled ginger that it seems to contain.