A more than simple recipe that offers a fantastic taste to a salad.
Here’s a simple apple vinaigrette.
Ingredients:
1 finely grated golden apple
16 tablespoons of virgin olive oil
4 tablespoons apple vinegar
Salt and pepper.
Preparation:
Pour the olive oil into a bowl.
Add the apple sauce, salt and pepper.
Peel the apple and grate it finely.
Add the grated apple to the vinaigrette. Mix well.
With the vinaigrette ready, dress the salad.
Some Great Uses for Your Apple Vinaigrette
You have prepared your apple vinaigrette recipe. Your first thought is to put it on salad. But there are other uses you can consider as well.
With the arrival of good weather, the dishes lose their forcefulness and gain in freshness. In addition to the temperature at which they are served… If cold – or warm – dishes are to be kept at hand throughout the year, they become essential with the first suns of spring. They have a key ally that, beyond a dressing, provides nuances and makes the result much more complex. We are talking about vinaigrettes.
This production has been the object of multiple revisions over the last few years. With a foundation that must be properly established (see details below), it is incredibly versatile and allows for ingredients not only of any type, but from any corner of the world. Talented chefs cannot resist such a range of possibilities… Below are the essential notions of vinaigrettes and several examples of how they are used in contemporary cooking.
Definition
The Dictionary of the Royal Academy of the Language offers a concise definition -maximum nowadays- for ‘vinaigrette’. This is “a sauce composed of oil, onion and vinegar, which is eaten cold with fish and meat”. Other experts go beyond these applications to include salads, seafood and vegetable dishes. Similarly, they add that fish can be in a short broth. And they include other ingredients, such as herbs and finely chopped pickles and capers.
The basic formula
If you examine the vinaigrettes more closely, you will get an idea of vital importance. There is a fundamental formula. And that, moreover, must be respected in any case. It is as follows:
In this way, an emulsion with an acidic product (such as vinegar or lemon juice) and a fatty element (such as oil, cream, sour cream or even yoghurt) is put to the point of salt and pepper. Other ingredients can be added. Some of them are onion, garlic, hard-boiled egg, anchovy, shallot, aromatic herbs, mustard, gherkin… They are just ‘some’ because this is where a whole range of possibilities open up. It could be said that a vinaigrette can be almost anything, so the limits are in the imagination and the expertise of the cook. And, of course, of their talent and their sensitivity in combining the organoleptic qualities of each element.
Some common elements
Very versatile, but with a series of more or less recurrent elements. Besides shallots, garlic, hard-boiled eggs and aromatic herbs, there are a number of products that are very popular as part of a vinaigrette.
MUSTARD
Mustard is one of the great classic elements of a vinaigrette. It is usually combined with ingredients such as honey and finely chopped garlic. The mustards that are used in the vast majority of occasions are those that treasure more load of flavor and spicy touches, like the old mustard and Dijon mustard. The most widespread application is on salads.
SPICES
From cumin, one of the most widely used, to complex and unique blends such as curry (see details, along with other spice blends, in this article). If vinaigrettes are already versatile in themselves, their possibilities if they add spices are multiplied exponentially.
DRY FRUITS
From seeds to pistachios, including pine nuts, walnuts and hazelnuts. Their main attraction is the crunchy texture they give to the vinaigrette, so if you use pine nuts and you want this effect, they must be toasted. In addition to the well-known salads, some people think that they add nuances to fish dishes, especially if they have been smoked or grilled.
FRESH FRUIT
According to experts, the strength of fresh fruit in a vinaigrette is precisely the sweet counterpoint. Thus, its fructose content would make the final result softer. Therefore, in addition to salads, it is often used in dishes that incorporate fish, smoked products and even duck magret and game.
WIDES
If adding fresh fruit to a vinaigrette softens the result, making it with anchovies means the opposite. Thus, this product and transfers its unique nuances. In addition to preparations in which the protagonist is the tomato, experts stress that it works well in dishes that incorporate roasted vegetables.
TANNED
From gherkins to pipes – in the most classic preparations – to onions and any product that can be home-picked. Pickles are one of the great elements to incorporate in a vinaigrette. However, given their organoleptic characteristics, great care must be taken to balance the acidity in the final result.
VEGETABLES
Onion, tomato, cucumber, green pepper… Traditional cuisine has many examples of applications of vinaigrette with vegetables. Among them, the octopus with vinaigrette and the mussels with vinaigrette shown in the image above.
Some elements in contemporary cuisine
As you can read above, the leading chefs of the Spanish gastronomic scene cannot resist the range of possibilities that open up when it comes to preparing a vinaigrette. Apicius.es has compiled below some examples of products they have incorporated.
KIMCHI
Pepe Solla uses this elaboration of Korean cuisine to make a vinaigrette. This also incorporates mirin and soy sauce. Thus this eminently Asian vinaigrette is one of the fundamental elements of the ‘Cacheira viajera’ that is served at Atlántico Casa de Petiscos (see image of the dish at the beginning of this article).
YUZU
This citrus fruit (which can be read in detail in this article from Apicius.es) is the acidic element in the vinaigrette with which Ricard Camarena (Ricard Camarena Restaurant, Valencia, a Michelin star) prepares his ‘Baby artichokes marinated with rosemary, yuzu and artichoke ravioli’ – the recipe is included in ‘Broths. El Código del Sabor’ (Montagud Editores)-. The fatty element is a rosemary oil, made by the chef himself.
DASHI BROTH
Albert Raurich (Dos Palillos, Barcelona, one Michelin star), author of Apicius 23, uses this basic broth of Japanese cuisine to prepare some of his vinaigrettes.
ANCHOVY COLATURA
If this product is indispensable in Ricard Camarena’s kitchen, it could not be present in his vinaigrettes. In this case, the anchovy colatura is combined with rice vinegar as part of a pickled pea juice. This is eaten together with the peas themselves and chervil.
ZUCCHINI
They are employed by Marcos Morán (Casa Gerardo, Prendes, one Michelin star), author of ‘Casa Gerardo. 50 Pasos de la Cocina Contemporánea’ (Montagud Editores). In fact, it accompanies them with apple and tomato. And he uses the final result to round off a dish with salmon as the main ingredient. The case of this preparation is curious because it does not incorporate ‘exotic’ ingredients into a vinaigrette. But it does make a difference by combining elements of a ‘different category’ (see details above) such as a fruit (apple) and two vegetables (tomato and courgette).