Leftovers Salad with Lemony Dressing

When I go to Salad Atelier, I have to tick the ingredients that I want in my salad. How many I can have depends on the size of the salad - Baby Salad, Adult Salad or Monster Salad.

There is a whole list of salad ingredients ranging from the obvious - salad greens, carrots, cucumbers and tomatoes to things like beans, rice, pasta, seaweed, tofu, edamame, smoked duck, poached chicken and a whole lot of other stuff.

One day I had a bit of leftover salad leaves, a sausage, roasted potatoes and cherry tomatoes. There are no rules in a salad right?  As long as you have a killer dressing, you can toss together whatever ingredients in a bowl to make an awesome salad.

One of my favorite dressings involves the juice of a lemon. And there has got to be garlic in there, not too much as to give me  killer garlic breath but enough for that garlicky taste that I love. 

Make big batch and simply store the dressing in a bottle. When you need to toss a salad, just give the bottle and good shake and you are all set.

That made a grand (healthy) meal. One big bowl of carbs, proteins and greens. A nice change from all the heavy eating during Chinese New Year.

Lemony Vinaigrette

Recipe source : Phong Hong

Note : There are no hard and fast rules to a dressing. Convention tells you 1 part vinegar to 3 parts oil, but you can vary the ratio like I did.

Ingredients :

- juice of one lemon

- 6 tbsp red wine vinegar

- 1 tbsp honey

- 1/2 tsp sea salt

- 1 tsp black peppercorns

- 1 big clove of garlic

- 6 tbsp olive oil

Method :

1. In a mortar and pestle, pound garlic, peppercorns and salt to form a paste.

2. Remove the pounded garlic into a bowl and add honey, lemon juice and vinegar. Stir to mix and adjust to taste.

3. Add olive oil, stir and pour the whole lot into a glass bottle. Give a vigorous shake to emulsify the mixture.

4. Can be stored in the fridge for 5 days.

Note : Another method which I now favor is to put everything (after pounding the garlic, peppercorns and salt) into a blender and giving the dressing a whizz. That emulsifies the dressing beautifully. It will separate after a while in the fridge but just bring out to room temperature and give the bottle a good shake.