salad

The dressing is prepared is a separate bowl, because there is nothing, and I mean nothing worse than an overdressed salad. Except the tsunami in Japan was pretty bad so that was worse. And today the tornado sirens went off and it looked like it was going to hail when I was out in my truck and that would have been pretty bad. Okay, come to think of it there are a lot of things worse than an overdressed salad but the point is that it's easily avoided by preparing it in a separate bowl. That way you can adjust your heart out without the risk of going overboard. 

*  Olive oil poured into a bowl. Enough you imagine would cover the entire salad plus a little extra to stick to the bowl.

*  Rice vinegar. Slightly sweet, not quite as acidic as most. Sufficient to acidify the oil that was poured. 

*  Mustard of any type. This is not necessary, but mustard is already an emulsion so on the molecular level it behaves naturally as a polarity agreement enabler. But so what? Isn't it nice sometimes to have a separated dressing? There is no problem at all with that. But there you go, in this case a combined whole-grain mustard that contains horseradish was used.

*  Any seasoning of your desire that you would like to see carried throughout the entire salad in the specific instance of this meal in this moment in time during this unique mood. Or else whatever you happen to have on hand, or nothing at all. Tonight: garlic powder and ginger powder.

*  Salt / Pepper

Whisked. Too little dressing, too thick a mixture. Adjusted with more oil. Then the thought occurred, it should have something sweet! Mirin? Honey? Apple? Oranges? Maple syrup? Corn syrup? Molasses? Splenda? Into the mixture went 1/4 teaspoon refined sugar. 

I didn't taste-test it because I knew that combination of things in those trifling amounts would be good no matter what. It turned out to be the perfect amount. And that type of judgement comes with, I don't even know what, it's like experience or something.