cooking @ home

©2008 Harry Kenney

Seems lately I’ve been doing some pairings. First the pesto then the pasta. Another day, a side and then a soup to go with it. Today, something similiar. I’ve made two Greek salad dressings and tomorrow or the next day I’ll put up the Greek salad that goes with it.

I told you I got into a bit of a “rut” doing a lot of Italian and Italian-American food. Well, rut is a negative word and I’m not pinning that in any way on the food, just the lack of variety. So you’ll also notice that I’m taking a more global walk on the wild side. Why? Pretty simple. I love all kinds of food. And fortunately seemingly every country, and often smaller regions of countries, have contributed major food items or at least nuances to the overall food tapestry of what we eat.

In this case, take the simple salad dressing. From my previous article on vinaigrettes we already know that a basic salad dressing consists of oil and then something acidic, either vinegar, alcohol or citrus acid and seasonings. In the case of the first dressing here it’s the lemon and honey where the Greeks have given us a twist.

When it comes to the second recipe, Greek cuisine has given us a complete flip from the norm with the introduction of yogurt as well as the infusion of mint to give a very different and intrinsically Greek flavor to the ordinary salad. As to the salad, well, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

One more thing. This is odd. Now four of us had both dressings, two of each. I fully expected to like the creamy one better. To my surprise I liked the vinaigrette better. The creamier one tasted better prior to putting it on the salad, more body. And yet the other one tasted better to me on the salad. That said, one other person agreed and the other two liked the creamy. So, what it comes down to is you might like one of these or both; either way there’s at the very least one here you’ll enjoy, and hopefully two.

Lemon-Honey Vinaigrette
©2008 Harry Kenney

1/3 cup red wine vinager
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
juice from 1/2 a lemon (roughly 2 tbsps)
1/2 tsp parsley flakes
2 tsps dried oregano
4 tbsps honey

Place all the ingredients in a bowl except for the olive oil. Pour in the olive oil while whisking the bowl. You could do this in a blender also. Done. Makes enough for about 4-6 salads.

Mint Yogurt Salad Dressing
©2008 Harry Kenney

1 cup drained plain yogurt
1/2 cup sour cream
2 tsp mint flakes
1 tsp oregano
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp lemon juice
salt
pepper

Mix everything together. Vary seasonings or proportions to taste. Ta-da. Enough for 8-10 salads.