Archive for February 3rd, 2008

Many times when we’ve dined out, we’ve eaten the so-called “Italian Salad” at restaurants. Typically, this is a tossed salad with $1’s worth of cheese and meat put on top. I decided to better the concept at home tonight for dinner.

The base of the salad was a bagged mixture of lettuces and carrot; I liked the crunchier texture and something that would hold to a robust dressing.

The dressing was composed of sherry vinegar, dijon mustard, honey, EVOO, pepper, and a dash of balsamic. I was going for a good, strong dressing, but no flavor overly pronounced. With some of the bitter lettuces, it needed some sweetness.

The salad was composed of the following vegetables:

• “strawberry” tomatoes
• roasted red pepper
• diced purple onion

The goodies, however, were not all vegetarian.

• sliced provolone
• sweet capriocola
• prosciutto di parma
• genoa salami

The dressing first hit the onions and tomatoes; the meats and cheese were added at the end, on top of the already-dressed salad. I used English sea salt on a layer above the meats and cheese. It had a nice combination of flavors and texture. A really, really, rich and delicious salad experience.

The breads turned out great, too. Just the right texture. These were browned at two different distances from the broiler unit in the oven. And now, a final glamour shot:

Bon appétit!