- Buy for products in the season, washing and dry greens well. Store in zipper bags with a paper towel.
- Stack the green and herbs and cut them with a sharp cooking knife at once.
- Show the dressing, have hearty ingredients marinate and always serve salads at room temperature.
A lettuce seems to be an easy undertaking, but it is a key cook like Ina Garten (or your loved ones) it is worth obtaining a few professional tips from the barefoot contessa.
That’s why I searched the INA website and cookbooks – including its youngest. Dinner: a barefoot contessa cookbookAnd a few oldies, but treats. From shopping and preparation to serving and saving, you will find the best tips from INA below to make better salads.
Buy in the season
Modern market practices even make it possible to buy mature strawberries and fresh green beans all year round. However, since products are often moved outside the season before it comes to them, it is usually not as fresh as from the region, seasonal products.
And Ina agrees. In one recent Instagram postShe shared some of her favorite spring dishes and noticed that “everything tastes better when it is in the season.” She also pointed out another reason for choosing the ingredients in the season … they are cheaper!
Stack to save time
Jeffrey Garten is a lucky guy. He can not only enjoy Ina’s delicious food every day (or something), but even has a whole cookbook for feeding entitled “With the title” With the title ” Cooking for Jeffrey. When the book was introduced, Ina said: “I have no greater pleasure than cooking for the people I love – and especially for my husband Jeffrey.” And it is precisely in this book you will find a salad make-tip tip that saves you a serious preparation time. In your kale salad with Pancetta & Pecorino, Ina says to stack and cut the kale leaves – a method that is well suited for preparing almost every leaf green. You can use this method in any of our kale salads that require the chopping of kale, such as our kale & quinoa salad with lemon dressing.
Take these greens for a spin
This next Nugget of Ina wisdom can be found in several of your salad recipes and simply makes sense, but is often overlooked. After you have brought these perfectly selected greens home, give you a thorough laundry (all your fruits and vegetables) to rinse germs, rubble and small insects that love to hide in all corners and angles.
As soon as your greens are clean, take them for a trip in a salad spinner to get them as dry as possible. This step prevents premature wilts (also known as moist salads) and enables the connections to be liable on the leaves instead of sliding directly onto the bottom of the bowl. You can also soak your greens directly in the spinner to avoid more dishes.
If you do not have a salad spinner, you can place the greens in a large tea towel and give the whole thing a whirl.
Use a sharp knife
When searching Ina salad recipes, I noticed this repeated advice: Use a very sharp cooking knife for cutting green and herbs. A sharp blade ensures a clean cut and prevents shredded, blue or harmful leaves. This ensures a better tasting and better -looking salad.
Less is more
I admit to bother my salad in homemade ranch dressing when the opportunity is offered. Otherwise I try to get easy when I accept salads. Apparently I do exactly what Ina would do when I hold back. In her Rucola with parmesan recipeexplains: “Pour enough dressing to the arugula to moisten.” This helps to prevent the ingredients from becoming mushy and improves their flavors instead of masking them.
Let it sit a bit
While this tip is not for all salads for salads, it is the key if those marinate with hearty ingredients to maximize the taste. Think of pasta and potato salads and those that contain grain like Inas chicken with tabbouleh salad. Appears in her third cookbook, Barefoot Contessa family styleThis recipe can be cooled, Ina Notes, to enjoy later, since “the flavors will improve in the course of the seats”. Although this salad contains parsley, it is a herb that can soak a little, in contrast to more sensitive herbs and delicate greens such as basil and Bibb salad.
Room temperature is best
As long as you don’t let your chicken and dairy products sit on a hot summer day, bring your salt ingredients to room temperature (or at least at room temperature) on the natural flavors and textures that can negatively influence cold temperatures.
Ina actually suggests serving several of her salad recipes at room temperature, including yours Tomato and avocado salad And Israeli vegetable salad. It does not indicate why, but I am sure that your culinary spirit is quite aware that – how many fruit and vegetables – tomatoes are not a fan of cold temperatures.
Carefully keep herbs & greens
To avoid food waste, follow this tip that was found Inas Tomate, Mozzarella and Basil Recipe (also known as Caprese salad): Wash and turn the herbs dry and then put them in a plastic bag with a dry paper towel to keep them fresh for several days. This technique works well for almost any kind of green. To keep larger quantities, put a greeting in a dating reusable food container. This also helps to reduce a disposable plastic waste. If you are a fan of Caprese salads, try our Hasselback -tomatoes -Caprese salad and our Caprese salad with an heirloom tomato & burrata.
