An All-American, Three-Ingredient Salad

Lisa — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:46:03 +0000

Pickle Salad

Have you ever thought about the classic burger “periodic table”? You know: your burger, your bun, your pickles, tomatoes, cheese, mustard, lettuce, and ketchup. If you deconstruct the ingredients, you wind up with the Holy Burger Trinity of tomatoes, cheese, and pickles. (Ketchup and tomatoes are redundant, especially if you have juicy, fresh tomatoes, and while mustard is a classic condiment in its own right, there’s generally mustard seed in the pickle brine. Lettuce makes for a nice crunch, but again, pickles are crunchy…and have far more flavor.)

Aside from the burger itself, then — which can range from tasteless cardboard (a 99-cent special “value”) to lush, real patties (i.e., made of 100% grass-fed beef) — what we really cherish are the tomatoes, cheese, and pickles. Huh. In that essential spirit, then, why not just make a Pickle Salad? Sure, you could top a burger with it, but you could just as easily eat it all by its delicious lonesome. And if you strongly believe that the Holy Trinity ought to be a Holy Quadruplet, feel free to dress your Pickle Salad with a hint of Dijon mustard.

Pickle Salad

Dice and toss juicy tomatoes with an equal amount of crunchy pickle spears. Cut a wedge of flavorful, creamy cheese such as Gouda or Cheddar into small cubes and toss again. (I used goat Gouda; it was the perfect balance of independent creaminess and supportive mellowness.) The tomato juice and pickle brine will provide plenty of dressing, but as I said earlier, a hint of Dijon certainly wouldn’t hurt.

Serve salad alone or atop burgers, steaks, chicken, or anything else you’d like to flavor with a true all-American relish.

Enjoy!

Sage

Lisa — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:59:44 +0000

“The young sow wild oats; the old sow sage,” goes the adage. Arabians associated sage with immortality while the Romans called it salva, or in Latin, to “heal” or “save.” (Hence, the modern-day word “salvation.”) There are hundreds of varieties of sage, ranging from the purple-flowered common sage to the more exotic varieties like pineapple sage and peach sage. In the 1500s, sage tea and sage beer became popular in England.

That popularity crossed over to America, where sage became the main flavor in stuffings and pork sausages. This strong herb complements strong English cheeses like Cheddar and Derby and is also a very good accompaniment to corn-based dishes such as cornbread and corn chowder. Its leaves are very thick and almost furry–if you dry your own, make sure that it is completely dry before you cap it and store it.

The Cultured Cook » american

An All-American, Three-Ingredient Salad

Sage