“The act of cooking ends in creativity but begins in the hands.” - Chef Robert Reynolds

I just posted a new Novice to Pro interview with Chef Robert Reynolds, cookbook author, cooking teacher, restauranteur and a heck of a nice guy. I called Chef Reynolds today in Portland, Oregon and we talked about food, cooking, France and and his culinary school, Chefs Studio.

Chef Reynolds trained in France with Madeleine Kamman and was mentored with Josephine Araldo. The two of them co-authored the cookbook, From a Breton Garden. He owned the very popular restaurant in San Francisco, Le Trou, from 1982 to 1996. 

Check out my interview with Chef Reynolds to hear his suggestions to help novice cooks get over their fear of cooking or his most important elements when creating a recipe from scratch. Below is his recipe for Three Salads. They are from his cookbook, An Excuse To Be Together.

THREE SALADS

Arrange all three salads nicely on a plate. Garnish them with butter lettuce and hard cooked eggs for lunch. You might sense what it is like to grow up with a French Maman who often makes dishes like these. Don’t forget the baguette!

Carrot Salad

(Note: I refer to flavorless oil to imply oils (peanut, sunflower, safflower, etc.) that don’t have as pronounced a flavor as olive oil.)

Ingredients:

6 medium-sized new carrots
Sea salt to taste
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 or 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard, to taste
4 tablespoons flavorless oil (see Note above)
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
Freshly ground pepper

Grate 2 cups of new carrots through the fine holes of a box grater. Put a generous pinch of sea salt into a small bowl. Add 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar, swirling to dissolve the salt. Add Dijon mustard to taste and using a fork, whisk to incorporate 4 tablespoons of oil. Toss the carrots with chopped parsley. Finish with salt and pepper to taste.

Beet Salad

Roast 2 to 3 whole, medium-sized beets at 350 degrees F until they become fork tender, about an hour. When they have cooled, peel them. Dice or shred and put into a bowl before tossing with another vinaigrette.

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I’m always being asked about interesting salad dressings and how to make them. Once you learn how to make a basic vinaigrette, you can experiment and make hundreds of variations depending on what greens you use and what you are serving it with.

This recipe calls for using real maple syrup but of course you can use the commercial stuff most of us put on our kid’s pancakes that is mostly sugar. The difference between real maple syrup and the imitation brands is huge and if you find you can spend a couple of extra dollars, it’s worth trying the real thing especially when you are using it in such limited quantity as in this recipe.

Check out my recipe for a Basic Mustard Vinaigrette

Maple Shallot Vinaigrette

Ingredients

1 teaspoon olive oil
1 small shallot, minced
3 tablespoons real maple syrup
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
salt & freshly ground pepper to taste
¼ cup canola oil

How to Make Maple Shallot Vinaigrette at Home

Start by heating the olive oil in a small saucepan over medium heat until hot. Sauté the shallot until soft and translucent, about 1 minute.

Remove the shallots to your favorite bowl for making salad dressing. Some like using a shallow cereal bowl; I like using a recycled jar with a lid that I can store the extra dressing. Add the maple syrup, balsamic vinegar, mustard and just a pinch of salt and pepper. We will adjust seasonings at the end.

Now comes the critical step of adding the canola oil to the bowl. You want to add the oil slowly and in a steady stream while you are either whisking with a small whisk or mixing with a fork but don’t stop blending.

This will help emulsify the oil and the vinegar, two substances that don’t like to stay mixed together. The mustard also helps by acting as an emulsifying agent.  When you are done adding the oil to the dressing, let it sit for a bit to meld flavors.

You can serve right away, but you may find the dressing even better in a few hours or even the next day. 

Serve this with a nice selection of mixed greens. In the photo above, I’ve added some crumbled blue cheese for another layer of flavor.

Even though the great summer tomatoes aren’t available yet here in Philadelphia, there is still a lot of good produce around. This time of year we live on fresh tomatoes, mozzarella and basil from our garden or the farmer’s market.

The mozzarella we buy at Costco. I like the large egg size that comes in the big tubs. A tub will last us a couple of weeks depending on how often my girls ask for slices to snack on. Personally, I think this is the same mozzarella that you buy in gourmet stores that are sold individually at twice the per pound rate.

Where we do indulge is with the oil and balsamic vinegar. I like to use the best extra virgin olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar I can afford. You use it sparingly, especially the balsamic vinegar, so why not treat yourself to something great. You don’t want to overpower the incredible flavors of the fresh tomatoes and basil so a little goes a long way.

You can find great extra virgin olive everywhere but they are not all the same. Each producer of fine virgin olive oil will create it with a unique taste and I recommend you go to a store where they will let you sample various oils to find the one you like.

The one I am very fond of is from Giorgio Zampa, a Tuscan style olive oil made on the small island of Sardinia off the coast of Italy. The oil is made with Bosana olives that are grown on the island, harvested when ripe and cold pressed within hours of picking. You can find this oil at ClubSauce.

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