Salad
Salad is a term applied broadly to many
food preparations that are a mixture of chopped or sliced ingredients. A salad can be served cold or at room temperature, although it can also form the filling for a
sandwich. Though it can be made with
meat or
eggs, it usually includes at least one raw
vegetable or
fruit. Often it is prepared or served with a
dressing.
A salad may be served before or after the
main dish as a separate
course, as a main course in itself, or as a
side dish.
Salad may refer to a blended food item— often meat,
seafood or eggs blended with
mayonnaise, finely chopped vegetables and seasonings— which can be served as part of a green salad or used as a sandwich filling. Salads of this kind include egg,
chicken,
tuna,
shrimp, and
ham salad.
In
Scandinavia, salad also refers to a blend of vegetables in a dressing used as a
condiment on top of the
open sandwich,
smørrebrød, and with meats. Examples include
cucumber salad,
horseradish salad, Italian salad (a mixture of vegetables in a
crème fraîche/mayonnaise dressing, served on ham), and Russian salad (a red
beet salad).
The word "salad" comes from the
French salade of the same meaning, from the
Latin salata, "salty", from
sal, "salt". (See also
sauce,
salsa,
sausage.)
The "green salad" is most often composed of a mixture of uncooked or cold cooked vegetables, built up on a base of
leaf vegetables such as one or more
lettuce varieties,
spinach, or
arugula.
Other common vegetables in a green salad include
tomato,
cucumber,
peppers,
mushroom,
onion,
spring onion,
carrot and
radish. Other food items such as
pasta,
olives, cooked
potatoes,
rice,
beans,
croutons, meat (e.g.
bacon, chicken),
cheese, or fish (e.g. tuna) are sometimes added to salads.
Types of green salad
*
Caesar salad*
Chef salad*
Chopped salad*
Cobb salad*
Greek salad*
Chilean salad*
Hawaiian salad*
Italian salad**
Rocket salad (rucola)
**
Agretti salad
**
Radicchio salad
*
French Salad**
Spring Salad**
Mesclun salad
**
Provençale salad**
Niçoise salad**
Chèvre chaud salad**
Gésier salad**
Mâche salad
**
Cuncumber salad
**
Antillaise salad**
Watercress salad
*
Tossed salad*
Pittsburgh SaladDressings
A green salad is often served with a dressing. Some examples include:
*
Mayonnaise**
Louis dressing**
Ranch dressing**
Russian dressing**
Thousand Island dressing**
Green goddess dressing**
Blue cheese dressing*
Olive oil**
French dressing*
Vinaigrette*
Tahini*
Italian dressingThe concept of salad dressing vary across cultures. Common salad dressings in North America tend to be very broad. Traditional dressings in southern Europe are
vinaigrettes, while
mayonnaise is predominant in eastern European countries and Russia. In
China, where Western salad is a recent adoption from Western cuisine, the term salad dressing (沙拉酱,
shalajiang) tends to refer to mayonnaise or mayonnaise-based dressings.
Garnishes
There are various vegetables and other fare that are often added to green salad. Some of them are:
*shelled
sunflower seeds
*
onions (mostly the red variety)
*
bacon bits (sometimes the bits are artificially flavored pieces of textured
soybean protein)
*
radishes
*grated
carrots
*
tomatoes
*
surimi - artificial crab meat
*cucumbers
*bell peppersAgain, individual taste usually governs the choice of salad garnishes.
Some salads are based on food items other than fresh vegetables:
*
Antipasto salad*
Bean salad*
Chicken salad*
Congealed salad*
Egg salad*
Fruit salad*
Israeli salad*
Larb from
Laos*
Pasta salad*
Potato salad*
Shopska salad from
Bulgaria*
Somen salad from
Japan*
Som tam from
Thailand*
Tabouli*
Tuna salad*
Waldorf salad*
Watergate saladDuring the
Middle Ages, after eating mostly salted meats and pickled vegetables all winter, people would be "salt-sick" and looked forward to spring greens. Popular history asserts that peasants ate more salads than lords, and were the healthier for it; in fact salads, cooked and raw, included many ingredients that would be "gourmet" today:
lovage,
burnet,
sorrel.
The
diarist John Evelyn wrote a book on salads,
Acetaria: A Discourse on Sallets (1699), that describes the new salad greens like "sellery" (celery), coming out of
Italy and the
Netherlands.
*
Alice Roth, "Sallets"*
Complete Recipes - Salads*
Lettuces for the home gardener*
Indian Salads
