Cooking Corner: Simple salad dressing

David W. Cowles

Cooking Corner

Published: 11:33AM November 25th, 2009

When you make a salad dressing separately from the salad and add it later (either poured on top of individual salads or mixed in), it’s much easier to include “wet” ingredients, such as mayonnaise, ketchup, Dijon mustard, pickle relish, sour cream or yogurt, than it would be if you made the dressing in the salad bowl.

Here are some delicious, easy-to-make salad dressings:

Vinaigrette

Once you’ve learned the proper proportions of acid, oil, sweetener and seasonings you prefer (start out with any recipe), you can save time by making a large batch of vinaigrette dressing.

Put all the ingredients in a bottle and shake it. Whatever you don’t use at one meal, you can refrigerate and save for another.

The only problem with such a dressing is oil doesn’t mix well with vinegar or other liquids, and it therefore quickly separates from it.

The manufacturers of bottled salad dressings solve that problem by adding various gums, gels and thickeners to their products. You can do the same thing (that is, emulsify the oil and vinegar) by using a much more natural and wholesome ingredient: an egg.

Try this technique: Break an egg into a small bowl. Add the spices and seasonings of your choice. Use a wire whisk to combine the ingredients. Blend in a little of the vinegar, then some of the oil, constantly whisking.

As the mixture thickens, add, alternately, more vinegar, then more oil. Done properly, you will create a dressing with a soft (pourable) mayonnaise texture.

A little paprika or dry mustard will help emulsify the vinegar and oil.

If the mixture doesn’t blend the way you think it should (probably because you’ve added the vinegar or the oil too much at a time), here’s a tip to salvage the ingredients: Break another egg in another small bowl, and, while you whisk it, add the first mix, a little at a time.

If salmonella is a concern, you can thicken salad dressing by using mayonnaise in place of the egg.

You also can substitute corn starch or arrowroot for the egg.

Here’s how: Mix a couple of tablespoons of starch with a cup of water and bring it to a boil. Cook on low heat until the mixture clears. Cool. Use a couple spoonfuls of the thickened starch in place of the egg.

Thousand Island

There are more than 1,800 islands in the Thousand Islands region of northern New York and southeast Ontario, Canada.

The islands, some of which are privately owned, are a popular resort area. It would seem logical that an innovative chef at one of the resorts originally created and named the salad dressing.

However, it appears that Thousand Island dressing was first made by Sophia LaLonde at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago in 1910. Perhaps it was given its name because LaLonde had a home in the Thousand Islands region. Or perhaps it was because the many small specks of pickles in the dressing resembled islands.

Using a wire whisk, add enough tomato ketchup to mayonnaise to give it a light salmon color — about one-third of a cup ketchup to 1 cup mayonnaise.

Stir in 1 teaspoon of sugar and one-third of a cup of pickle relish. Add seasoned salt and seasoned pepper to taste.

Optionally, add 1 tablespoon of finely minced onion and/or 1 finely chopped, hard-cooked egg.

Russian

There doesn’t seem to be any agreement as to what constitutes Russian dressing. Check the Internet, and you’ll find an extremely wide range of ingredients.

I make my Russian dressing similar to Thousand Island, starting with 1 cup mayonnaise and one-third of a cup of ketchup — no pickle relish.

Then, I add 1 tablespoon of finely minced onion, 1 tablespoon of prepared horseradish, 1 teaspoon of celery seed, 1 teaspoon sugar and seasoned salt and pepper, to taste.

This recipe seems to be the closest to the Russian dressing that’s served in most delis.