"Small details that make a big difference" Nigel Slater
It's first recipe time and working my way through my bookshelves I have come to one of my very favourite cookbooks. I actually have several favourites and they are not all by NIgel Slater and Yotam Ottolenghi believe it or not. However, just because it's next on my shelf we are indeed looking at NIgel Slater again. The book is his latest - now a couple of years old - A Cook's Book - his COVID work - so many cooks wrote somewhat personal cookbooks in those two years.
It is a very fine book, one that you can actually read for pleasure, as well as cooking from. He designates himself as 'a cook who writes' which is a completely accurate description. He writes so well in fact, that I almost considered suggesting this as 'my' book group book of the year, and I may still do so for next year, in spite of its cost. They can borrow it from a library after all. Or maybe I should just scan the lengthy introduction and make them read that.
The photograph above by Jenny Zarins who contributes the home photographs and portraits within the book, is the very first thing you see when you open the book. It is very evocative of his general philosophy - simple, even almost ascetic, unadorned but beautiful nonetheless in a timeless kind of way. It is particularly appropriate for his first recipes - a short set of short recipes that are hardly recipes that open the guts of the book. Each of the set of nine is worth a post of its own, and so that's what I aim to do in the next few weeks.
This group of recipes is called 'A few essentials and is summed up with these words:
"There are a few basics, a handful of what I think of as 'essentials'. that I would genuinely hate to live without. Small things, but to my mind important. ... They are small details that make a big difference."
The first of these - today's topic is Salad dressing, something which that phrase "small details that make a big difference" rings a real bell for me. Because salad dressing - i.e. French vinaigrette is what changed my whole perception of food on that first visit to France as a twelve or thirteen year-old teenager. In many, many ways it changed my life.
Prior to going to France our salads, had either had no dressing at all, a sprinkling of malt vinegar or Heinz salad dressing - an icky creamy thing which I did not like. I have spoken many times of the revelation of tomato salad - my very first taste of French cuisine, but I don't think I have talked much of vinaigrette and the daily ritual in the Coutant household of a green salad course after the main course in the evening.
Prior to the meal Mr. Coutant would make this dressing. He would carefully cut a clove of garlic - a completely new thing to me, as I think my oft repeated first go at bolognaise, came later. The garlic would be cut into minute dice and mixed in a bowl with olive oil, red wine vinegar, mustard, and salt and pepper. It was then vigorously stirred until emulsification occurred, torn salad leaves thrown over and the whole mixed together. I should say that the lettuce was added to the dressing immediately prior to its eating - as a course all on its own. Because it was that good. I couldn't wait to show my mother how to make it when I returned from that first trip and she, like I, was entranced. Lettuce, which previously had been eatable but totally uninteresting and virtually tasteless was lifted into gourmet category. I remember this so well because I think I would say that it was the first thing that I could honestly say I had cooked on my own - not that it is cooked at all of course. It was something that I showed somebody else how to cook. To this day almost every meal has a last course (we don't often have dessert - or cheese) of a green salad. It cleanses the palate, refreshes and excites the tastebuds.
I confess that my salad dressing does not conform to Nigel's strictures - which I will come to. I use too much vinegar I think for the purists, and the vinegar is white not red. The mustard is also dry English mustard powder not French Dijon - although I always have some of that to hand. But there is garlic. I used to crush it in my vintage garlic crusher, but these days I have reverted to chopping it, almost in memory of Mr. Coutant who must be long dead. The lettuce is also different. Almost always it is iceberg - which I do not deplore like many food snobs, although I think I might prefer the French frisée or endive, which is somewhat bitterer and not much seen here. Note to self - I really must go to the market again.
Nigel describes the aim of the whole exercise:
"A dressing to flatter the fresh ingredients, not mask them. A light, uplifting lotion to tease out the flavours of the ingredients rather than one that smothers. A dressing to bring harmony and balance. It is what makes a few, well-chosen leaves special enough to eat as a single course."
Yes a single course. For me it should not be added to the meat, fish or vegetables on your plate, although, as Nigel suggests, sometimes the addition of some of the juices from a roast could be added. No need really, however, as the salad, in our house at least, and also in that long ago Meung-sur-Loire apartment, is eaten on the same plate as the main - just eaten, and so the juices are amalgamated with the dressing in a different fashion.
This is how Nigel makes it:
"I put the smallest clove of garlic I can find in a mortar, a pinch of salt, then smash the garlic to a paste. Four tablespoons of red wine vinegar are poured over the garlic and then it is set aside for 10 minutes. A short time, but enough to take the heat and crude pungency out of the garlic. A teaspoon of soft, smooth Dijon mustard and then I beat in 175ml of olive oil with a small whisk, a few turns of the peppermill, pour it into a screw top jar or Kilner and keep it in the fridge. This is enough for 4 bowls of salad leaves, generously dressed."
He credits Alice Waters with the recipe but says he has modified it by lessening the amount of garlic and using different vinegar. He also makes it in advance, which I remember being told - perhaps by Elizabeth David in her somewhat peremptory tone - that you should never make it in advance if there was garlic involved because the garlic would not remain fresh. And so I never do make it in advance. Which is fine because it's part of my dinner providing ritual - a soothing last part of cooking the evening meal. "I could make it in my sleep", says Nigel elsewhere, and so could I.
I should, of course, say that Nigel's way is not necessarily everybody else's way, and it certainly wasn't Elizabeth David's. Back in the day her word was the ultimate judgement. So here is what she says in her book Summer Cooking. I was going to edit it a bit, but have decided to do the whole thing because it's so - well - Elizabeth David. So apologies for the length:
“It seems to me that there are only three absolutely essential rules to be observed: the lettuce must be very fresh; the vinegar in the dressing must be reduced to the absolute minimum, the dressing must be mixed with the lettuce only at the moment of serving. Wash the lettuce, (ideally of course
it should not be washed at all, but each leaf wiped with a clean damp cloth), under a running cold tap; don’t leave it to soak. Drain it in a wire salad basket, or a colander, or shake it in a clean teacloth in which it can then be hung up to dry; or it can be put, still wrapped in its cloth, into a refrigerator until half an hour before it is to be served (don’t put a freshly picked garden lettuce in the refrigerator, but it will do no harm to the average bought lettuce). The salad dressing can be prepared beforehand, and when it is time to mix the salad, do it gently, taking your time, and ensuring that each leaf has its proper coating of oil. The most effective way of mixing a green salad is with your hands.
The French dressing most commonly used consists of 3 parts oil to 1 of vinegar, but to my mind this is far too vinegary, and seldom use less than 6 times as much oil as vinegar. Tarragon-flavoured wine vinegar makes the best dressing. First-class olive oil is of course essential, and given this, the flavour of the lettuce and the oil, with a little salt and garlic, is quite enough to make a perfect salad without any further seasoning. The grotesque prudishness and archness with which garlic is treated in this country has led to the superstition that rubbing the bowl with it before putting the salad in gives sufficient flavour. It rather depends whether you are going to eat the bowl or the salad. If you like the taste of garlic but don’t actually wish to chew the bulb itself, crush it with the point of a knife (there is really no necessity to fuss about with garlic presses and such devices unless you wish to intensify and concentrate the acrid-tasting oils in the garlic instead of dispersing them), put it in the bowl in which the dressing is to be mixed, add the other ingredients and stir vigorously. Leave it to stand for an hour and by that time the garlic will have flavoured the oil, and it can be left behind when the dressing is poured on to the salad."
Maybe I'm more than a rebel than I thought because I never really followed her instructions that closely. I certainly do not wipe each leaf with a clean cloth, although I do not wash it, unless it's one of those floppy lettuces which do often have some dirt clinging to the leaves. Mr. Coutant used garlic so I used garlic. He was French after all. And I think his oil/vinegar proportion was rather nearer to Nigel's than Elizabeth's. These days I think I try to keep it to about 1/3 vinegar to oil. But next time I make a salad I'm definitely going to try and follow Nigel's instructions.
So there you are - Nigel Slater's salad dressing and I will leave you with one of his salad recipes which uses a similar but not identical dressing. Spring is coming, and I thought it looked rather wonderful - Roast spring vegetables, tarragon and lemon dressing. Not a green salad, and probably the lemon balances the vegetables rather better than vinegar.
POSTSCRIPT
September 3 - a day on which I indulged myself and bought Ottolenghi's new cookbook Comfort. We shall see if it is up to the Ottolenghi standard.
2023 - Nothing
2021 - When you're out of ideas
2019 - Nothing and nothing more until the 12th. I must have gone away somewhere
2018 - A word from Julia Child
2016 - Sausage sizzles
It all begins but does not end in France - even for Nigel.