Composed salads

Salade Nicoise

No, composed salads are not those jellied concoctions that were popular in your grandma’s day and showed up on her table every Sunday when you were a kid. Remember? Orange Jell-O with grated carrots and pineapple chunks? Cherry Jell-O with dark cherries and—shhh! —port wine. Or jellied gazpacho. (I really liked some of those, though pistachio and Cool Whip were a bit much for me.)

Composed salads are simply salads where the ingredients are laid out on a plate instead of tossed in a bowl. Traditionally when you serve them at home, you lay the ingredients out on one large platter. Diners help themselves, but we all know that self-service can get kind of messy. For a small crowd—two to four—I sometimes serve individual salads laid out in soup plates. You can dress the individual dishes or pass a small pitcher of dressing.

The nice thing about them is you can use almost any ingredients that strike your fancy. There are, however, two basic composed salads familiar to everyone who has ever had lunch in a bistro café. Both of these are often served on a bed of lettuce.

Cobb salad

Cobb salad started in the 1930s at the Brown Derby restaurant in Hollywood. Owner Bob Cobb went prowling in his restaurant’s refrigerator for leftovers, arranged them on a plate, drizzled French dressing over the dish, and there it was. Within days it was on the menu

Traditional ingredients are cold chicken breast, often diced, tomato (halved cherry tomatoes are good), green beans, tiny potatoes, cheese (sometimes blue, sometimes cheddar), avocado, bacon bits, sometimes artichoke hearts.

Cobb used French dressing on his salad but use your imagination. I think a good vinaigrette is nice because it accents the flavor of the ingredients without overwhelming them. But restaurants frequently offer a choice, so feel free to use ranch, blue cheese, Italian, honey-mustard, whatever suits.

Salade Niçoise

Whereas Cobb features chicken, salade Niçoise is built around tuna. I like to do it with high quality canned albacore in water.

Olives are also traditional, but I omit them because olives are on the short list of things I just don’t eat. But tiny baby potatoes, peeled, boiled, and cut in quarters if necessary, green beans, hard-boiled eggs are all common. I sometimes add asparagus.

The following two dressings are good on Cobb salad or salade Niçoise as well as a plain green salad.

Avocado salad dressing

1 lg. avocado, soft, ready to use; peeled and cut into chunks

2 tsp. lemon juice

½ cup. Greek yogurt

Hot sauce to taste--I sprinkle a few drops

1/4 cup olive oil

2 garlic cloves

3/4 tsp. salt

Throw it all in the food processor. The avocado is hard to blend--chunks keep reappearing. It’s easier if the avocado is very ripe and soft. You have to scrape down the sides and continue to blend until you don't see chunks. But this is really good and healthy.

Creamy blue cheese salad dressing

2 Tbsp. each mayonnaise, sour cream, and buttermilk

1 tsp. lemon juice

¼ tsp. pepper

¼ tsp. Kosher salt

1 anchovy fillet, mashed (optional or use a tsp. of anchovy paste)

Blue cheese – 2-3 Tbsp. to taste

1 finely chopped scallion

Mix all ingredients, adding cheese and scallion last. If dressing is too thick, sparingly add more buttermilk.

This is classic for wedge salads but also good on torn leaf lettuce and any number of other good things.

Nothing better than a main-dish cold salad on a hot spring day.