July's Substack is up, on how I meal plan, & why you should give it a try even if the words meal plan make your eyes glaze over. The rest of the month I'll be getting into the nuts and bolts of technique & recipes in my meal plan.
Today we're talking about Salad Dressing. Salad dressing gets used a lot in my meal plan. I make one or two a week. I eat a salad for lunch most days of the year (except the colder parts of winter). And there are salads the whole family makes that are on regular rotation at dinner. Buffalo Chicken Salad, Caeser Salad, Lemony Kale Salad, Ramen & Tofu Salad, & Chinese Chicken Salad.
There's one skill I love to teach more than any other, and that is making a killer salad dressing.
Learn to Make Salad Dressing Without a Recipe
In cooking school, you learn the French mother sauces: Veloute, Bechamel, Espangole, Hollandaise & Tomato. If I were to create a school of cooking, salad dressing would be my mother sauce.
If you can master salad dressings, it will carry over to all of your cooking.
And you don’t need a recipe, but rather a formula. Which means that once you learn the formula, you can make it anywhere and anywhere.
One of the core elements to becoming an excellent cook is learning to rely on your senses. In particular, tasting everything you make, over and over again, with each change, until it’s finished. Professional chefs don’t expect to follow a recipe and have it come out perfectly just because they measured everything. They know that no two ingredients are ever the same, and therefore you can never truly make the same dish twice. The olive oil I used last week was from a different part of the orchard that gets less sun, and is therefore more bitter, which meant I needed to add some more honey to the dressing. The citrus I used today was from Meyer lemons instead of Eureka lemons, and sweeter than the ones I used to make last weeks dressing. So I didn’t need to add extra sweetener. You get the idea…
Learning to make a good salad dressing is an opportunity to take your cooking skills from formulaic recipes (a brain exercise) to embodied execution (an exercise of using your senses and taste buds and refining). It’s easier to learn when you have a teacher helping you hone these skills, but it’s possible alone. To start, just make your salad dressing (and all food) with the assumption that adjustments will be needed.
There are four elements to every dressing: salt, fat, acid and sweetness. Everytime I make a dressing and taste it, I ask myself: Are the acid and fat in balance? Does it need more or less salt? A touch of sweetness? That’s it. By training your palate to recognize when these elements are out of balance, all of your cooking will radically shift. The best way to do this is to actually dip the lettuce (or whatever your salad is made of) in the dressing to taste it.
Basic Salad Dressing Formula
Mastering Salad Dressing Requires Growth Mindset. Stick with it and you will be rewarded the rest of your life. If you don't love the first one you make, keep at it. Try to think about what you didn't like, and what might make it better. Going slow enough to notice the details matters here.
Ingredients: 1 part acid (vinegar, lemon or lime juice) Optional, added seasonings (garlic, shallots, mustard) 3-4 parts oil (Organic Avocado Oil or Extra Virgin Olive Oil or a combination of the two) Sea Salt Honey or Maple Syrup
Directions: I use wide mouth mason jars & a hand blender to emulsify my dressings. If you don't have a hand blender that's fine, you'll just need to shake your dressing again before serving.
Choose your acid. Apple cider vinegar, mixed citrus juices or rice wine vinegar are good choices. Start by pouring 1/3 the total volume of dressing you want into the mason jar.
Add any additional seasonings. For honey mustard dressing, add dijon to apple cider vinegar. [I also add dijon to my balsamic dressing.] Or mix 3 types of citrus in the winter. Let what you have already or what looks good in the market guide you.
Let shallots or garlic sit in the acid & macerate for a few minutes, this will leach the bitterness out.
Choose your fat. Olive oil solidifies in the fridge, so if you are making a big batch to last several days, I'd use a combo of avocado and olive oils. Pour the amount of oil you think you'll need into a liquid measuring cup. The more acidic the acid, the higher ratio of oil in the dressing.
Add sea salt, less than you think you'll need (it's easier to add more than adjust for a too salty dressing).
Place the hand blender at the bottom of the mason jar with the acid, and while holding it, turn it on, while slowly, slowly, slowly pouring the oil into the jar. This is the hardest part as it requires coordination between both hands. If you pour the oil too fast the dressing won't emulsify. The emulsification will "break" at times, no biggie. Practice and eventually your dressings will hold and not separate. If it doesn't work, it's still delicious. You'll just need to shake the separated oil and vinegar together before you toss the salad. The first part of engaging your senses is to listen and observe as you add the oil. The dressing will start to get thick as it emulsifies, and the sound of the blender changes. This is the first indication that the fat and acid are coming into balance.
Now taste. Are acid & fat in balance? How about the salt? Does it need a touch of sweetness? One trick is to taste it on a leaf of lettuce, to get a better idea of how the tossed salad will taste. I try not to add sweeteners to my food but sometimes a bit of honey or maple syrup is needed. Add what is missing, blend & taste again. In the event that you oversalt, you can add extra acid to compensate. Never assume — always taste.
You are now on your way to becoming a salad dressing master. This skill takes time to develop, so pay attention when you are eating the salad. Is it insanely delicious or could it use a little more something? Under salting is often the culprit in most lackluster food, because cooks add as much as they think they should, as opposed to as much as the dish actually needs to taste good. Use a good sea salt and don't worry too much about quantity if you tend to undersalt things.
GI Map + Lab Review.
If I had to choose one lab I wish everyone would get, it's an easy choice: the GI Map.
Because gut health is the foundation of all health, it makes sense to go straight to the facts about what is going on with your gut. The more I practice, the more I"m using this lab and the earlier I'm bringing it in.
What's going on with your gut: Are there pathogens? How much good bacteria do you have? What kinds? What about the bad stuff? Is there inflammation? How are your overall intestinal health markers? Is the easily treatable H Pylori reeking havoc on your entire digestive tract?
My 20 Week Reset is for those who would like accountability, someone along for the ride. If you just want the info & feel confident you can follow the protocol, Gi Map + my 90 Minute Lab Blueprint is an excellent step towards reclaiming your health. Or if you'd like to understand better what's going on before you decide which road to take, this is a good first step as well.
Cost is $225 for the review + the cost of the GI Map (about $360 including taxes at the moment).
After a single 90-minute session, you walk out with a clear, prioritized plan. If you've been wanting more directive insight on your gut health and what to do about it, this is the gold standard.
