I picked up a small tip in cooking class last week about making salad dressing and I’ve used it 3 times – it’s been fantastic and has changes the way I make salad dressing.
Before mixing oil and vinegar, pour your vinegar into a bowl and salt it. Stir or shake the bowl to incorporate the salt before adding the oil. Salt will not easily dissolve into oil so salting the vinegar allows you to evenly season your dressing far easier than adding it to the oil!
What little tricks have you learned in the kitchen lately (or you’ve known for a long time and want to share)?
I love to make flavored vinegars for dressings. I soak berries like blueberries or blackberries in vinegar for a month or three. Sometimes I add a dried hot pepper. Then I strain out the berries, mix the vinegar with a bit of salt, a bit of sugar, and a bunch of coarsely ground black pepper, and let that soak for a couple more weeks. At salad time, I mix the vinegar with the olive oil. It’s awesome stuff
jj,
That sounds really amazing!
Are the berries edible at that point? I imagine they’d be very acidic but have pickled berries before. Maybe they could be dried and ground as a tart powder?
No reason you couldn’t eat them (I am certain they’d be safe), but you might not want to. They are awfully tart. I tried one and it just about turned my mouth inside out! Most of the vinegar based pickles I have ever made call for cutting the vinegar with water, in order to make an edible product; in the case of the berries, of course, the vinegar is full strength. The blueberries and Saskatoons hold up really well, though, and might make in interesting garnish.
Heheh!
We have minimal ‘toys’ on our kitchen but if we had an ice cream maker, it sounds like these could be really fun with it – sweet and tart.
Are you using white vinegar or have you experimented with other types as well? This has been on the list of must-do’s for a while – this summer we’ll definately make some batches up.
I have tried white wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar, and plain old white vinegar. If the berry flavor is strong enough, there isn’t enough difference in the vinegar flavors to justify the price difference in buying it (a 500 mL jug of apple cider vinegar, for instance, costs almost as much as a gallon of 5% pickling vinegar). For the ‘mushier’ berries like raspberries and blackberries, the 5% vinegar seems to be almost necessary, as the juice from the berries dilutes the vinegar significantly. If you wanted to get really fancy, you could use the white wine vinegar with some of the firmer berries (the blueberries and saskatoons), as the subtle flavor would have a better chance of coming through, as it would be less diluted by juice. I might go with white wine vinegar for use with herbs, though I really haven’t experimented with that yet.
Thanks for sharing so much JJ! We’ve done some herbs like this; will have to move to berries next.
Look forward to trying!
This is my summer goal. All of those wonderful herbs I grow each year and I thought I would dabble in making my own salad dressings. Even to the point that I’m hopeful that I will just use the dried herbs and make my own mixtures all ready to go. That’s the plan …
Awesome Lynette!
We grew a lot of herbs in pots on our fence this year – it worked well. We dried much of them but also salted them (like herbes salees) – they are still in our fridge and awesome!
I am not a giant fan of mustard, but after I learned it was a great emulsifier, I add a small dollop to all my home made dressings. It doesn’t add a bunch of flavor, but it sure helps the dressing hold together.
Hi Nancy!
We’ve been using tahini lately too (sesame paste). It’s really neutral-flavored if you’re not a big fan of mustard.
J
i do like mustard AND its emulsifying effect and add a good T of dijon mustard to my balsamic vinegar & oil dressings. TASTY!
Me too Jomia! We sometimes add whole-grain mustard on top of other mustard for a 1-2 punch that’s awesome!
If I’m adding shallots to my vinaigrette, I’ll chop them finely and let them sit in the vinegar for 10 minutes, before I add the oil. It softens their flavour. I’m going to start to add the salt at this point too, now.
Thanks!
Great idea Alley! Thanks for sharing; love me a quick pickle.