I was feeling virtuous this weekend—virtuous and bourgeois—as I hopped off my bike, hiked my cute graphic tote bag up the stairs to my fourth-floor Brooklyn walk-up, and released the farmers' market haul onto my countertop. Oh, the smug smile on my face. Not only was my lunch going to be healthy, it was going to beeminently Instagramable.
I trimmed the green beans anddropped them in a pot of boiling water. I washed thered-veined sorreland got it as dry as I could. The fat cherry tomatoes? I rinsed them and sliced them in half, eating most of them as I prepped.
I thought I'd make a simple vinaigrette for my salad or, as I often do,skip the dressing altogetherand just use olive oil and salt. But when I opened my fridge, I saw a small carton of heavy whipping cream. And I knew what I wanted to do.
I poured some of the cream into a bowl. Added salt, poured in a splash of white wine vinegar. There was some pesto in my fridge; I put in a spoonful of that, too. Then I whisked. Or perhapswhippedis the right word. I whipped until the cream had thickened just enough that I could run a finger along the bottom of the bowl and see, briefly, a trail where my finger had been.
The whipped cream salad dressing is one I learned inRoy Finamore'sTasty, a cookbook that is full of revelations for real home cooks. When I called Finamore to talk more about this dressing, he seemed slightly incredulous. "It's just a little salad dressing," he said, humbly.
Well, yes, it is. But for people like me—that is, people who don't have a sense for how to make the rich, creamy dressings I get at restaurants or at the grocery store—the whipped cream salad dressing is a revelation. InTasty,这是尽可能简单的可能:1/2杯heavy whipping cream and a few tablespoons of Dijon mustard whipped to soft peaks, then flavored with a little lemon juice, a little salt, and a little pepper. Finamore prefers to pair the dressing with hearty, bitter greens. "Escarole, chicory—something bitter," he said. "I think this dressing would overpower tender greens."
Clearly I put my own spin on the dressing. Pesto instead of mustard; soft sorrel instead of sturdy kale. But that is the beauty of the whipped cream dressing: it'scream, for crying out loud—it's as blank a slate you can get. Sriracha,chermoula, harissa, curry powder—any of it could go in. Inthe recipe below, chef Joshua McFadden infuses the cream with garlic first,thenwhips it with lemon.
"You keep hearing about the rules of thumb for a vinagrette, the ratio of oil to vinegar," said Finamore, "and I think everybody gets confused by that. But then you get something like this. It’s got a little bit of tang, a little bit of sharpness, and it’s a little creamy.
"It’s a verysafedressing to make," he said. "It’s hard to go wrong."
