Dad's Dressing

Salad Days



In "Fire Builder" I wrote about the barbeques we had when I was a kid. It wasn't unusual for steak to be left over — when you reach into the freezer and pull out a few steaks wrapped in white butcher paper with "t-bone" scrawled across them you occasionally end up thawing more meat than you need. Even when there was steak left over, four growing kids meant there wouldn't be much, certainly not enough on its own to feed those kids again the next day. My mother's solution to this dilemma was to make steak salad.

She'd cut the steak up into bite size pieces and toss with with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, and whatever else there was around. Then she'd dress the salad with what we called Dad's Dressing. Dad's Dressing was an invention of my father's, a variation on Dale's Steak Sauce. (You can read about my connection to that steak sauce here.)

The dressing does an amazing job of linking the vegetables to the meat, blending the fresh green flavors of the salad with the smoky flesh.

This dressing is surprisingly good on any green salad, but it really shines when the salad contains grilled meat — whether it's beef, chicken, pork, or even salmon. The dressing does an amazing job of linking the vegetables to the meat, blending the fresh green flavors of the salad with the smoky flesh.

I've tweaked Dad's recipe, mainly with the addition of wine where Dad used water. And these days if I'm grilling something I'll often deliberately grill more than I need just to have some meat leftover for my favorite salad.

Dad's Dressing

3/4 c vegetable oil
1/4 c red wine (you can use water instead)
1/2 c soy sauce
1/4 red wine vinegar
1 tbsp ground mustard
2 cloves crushed garlic (or 1 tsp garlic powder)
1 tbsp dried marjoram or oregano
1 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp Tobasco

Mix all ingredients in a jar and shake thoroughly. Allow to flavors to meld for an hour or so before using. The dressing will keep for a couple of months in the refrigerator.

Technorati: Food | recipe | salad | steak salad | dads dressing | salad dressing

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Potato Salad

Not Your Grandmother's Potato Salad



My family has few traditional recipes. There's Mummo's Bourbon Cake, a Christmas treat that's made Thanksgiving weekend and then aged (with regular shots of bourbon) until Christmas. And while Mom made the bourbon cake, Dad would make eggnog, which was also aged until Christmas.

During strawberry season there would be one Saturday or Sunday night supper that consisted solely of Strawberry Shortcake, which Mom made. And summers featured Dad's salad dressing, a soy sauce-based dressing that's particularly good on a green salad that includes leftover grilled steak.

Food has replaced sex in my life, now I can't even get into my own pants ~ Unknown

In fact, for a brief period of time my brother Loren cooked for banquets at a local hotel. The first time there was leftover steak from the banquet he brought it out to my parent's house for the dogs. My mother had a fit over feeding "perfectly good steak" to the dogs so she cut it up for salad. Loren was too squeamish to eat it, but I happened to be there that day and I agreed with my mother — after all, the only things that had touched the meat were a steak knife and my brother's hands.

But those few recipes are about it for traditions, except for Sutherland Potato Salad. And although this isn't your grandmother's potato salad, it is my grandmother's — maybe even her grandmother's.

This is an old recipe (if you can even call it a recipe) from my mother's family that's unusual because the dressing is just oil and vinegar, salt and pepper. The salad itself consists of nothing but potatoes and onions — no eggs, celery, pickles, relish, mayo, mustard, or anything else. Those who've never had this salad are often put off by the idea because it's so drastically different from most potato salads. Nevertheless, one bite always produces raves. It really is a case of the total being greater than the sum of it's parts.

But, given such simple ingredients, every Sutherland who makes it has their own little tweaks. Some swear by baking potatoes while others prefer red potatoes. Some use white onions and others red onions or yellow onions. My Aunt Gloria insisted on white vinegar while I think cider vinegar is best. My mother added fresh dill to her's for a while and I've come to consider the dill essential.

The basic recipe consists of:

3 lb potatoes
1 lg onion
salad oil (vegetable, corn, or canola)
vinegar
salt and pepper

My version consists of:

3 lb Yukon Gold (or baking/Russet/Idaho) potatoes
1 lg red onion (3" diameter)
canola oil
cider vinegar
1/4 c minced fresh dill
salt and pepper

Ingredients
Yukon Golds are perfect for this salad. I like their hint of sweetness and they're a medium-high starch potato. I avoid low starch potatoes for two reasons. First, higher starch potatoes are absorbent and will soak up the oil and vinegar, while with low-starch potatoes the dressing tends to pool in the bowl. Second, high-starch potatoes crumble a bit during mixing and these potato particles absorb more of the dressing and cling to the larger pieces of potatoes resulting in something akin in texture and function to mayonnaise. (Look at the photo, it isn't out of focus, it's grainy because of the potato sauce.)

Red (Bermuda) onions are relatively mild and slightly sweet, which offers a nice contrast to the sour vinegar. Also, the purple color makes for a much more visually appealing dish.

I use canola oil, but any neutral oil will do. The purpose of the oil is mouth feel, not flavor, so avoid olive oil.

I prefer cider vinegar, but white (distilled) vinegar is also fine. Avoid wine-based or flavored vinegars, they detract from the whole rather than contribute to it.

You can skip the dill, but of all the variations on this recipe that I've eaten over the years dill is the only one that works (although, Aunt Gloria was horrified by the idea). The dill adds an herbal, grassy note that gives the salad a freshness it is otherwise missing. And, like the red onion, it makes a more visually appealing result.

Assembly
Cut the onion in quarters vertically, then each quarter in half horizontally. Separate the layers and cut the larger pieces in half again. You should end up with a collection of 1/2 inch squares and some randomly-sized pieces from the center. Dump the onion into a large bowl.

Peel the potatoes and cut into bite-size pieces (1/2 to 3/4 inch square). Cook in boiling, salted water until completely cooked — about 12 minutes. Drain and immediately add to the onions. Mix with 1/2 cup of oil, 1/4 cup of vinegar, a tablespoon of salt and a tablespoon of black pepper. It's essential that the potatoes be hot when mixing in the oil and vinegar because they'll absorb the liquids.

Let the salad sit for a couple of minutes, then taste it (be sure to include a bite of onion). You will almost certainly need to add more oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper but at this point how much of each is a matter of your personal taste. Ideally the flavor will be on the tart side because the tartness will decline as the salad ages.

Let the salad cool to room temperature, then mix in minced dill. Taste again and tweak as needed. Chill for at least four hours, but ideally overnight. Stir and taste one last time before serving.

Note, with the coating of oil and acidity of the vinegar, this is probably the safest potato salad you could take on a picnic.

Technorati: Food | recipe | potato salad | potatoes | picnic | barbeque | salad

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