Summer brings with it the desire for fresh and light foods and then here are the salads on our tables: colorful, tasty and nutrients, essential to keep our body well hydrated, satisfy the view and the palate.
But what is a salad? Defining it as a set of leaves is very reductive. Rather I like to think of a mix of heterogeneous flavors linked together and enhanced by more or less complex sauces, because it is known, a salad deserves quality condiments! After all, even a trivial lettuce can become a king outline if enhanced by the right seasoning.
The perfect dressing: the oil
The dressing can be of a creamy type, more consistent and full -bodied like mayonnaise or mustard, or based on oil mixed with lemon juice, orange or vinegar and various aromatic herbs. However, I believe that a mixed flavors such as salad demands oil, the only one able to transform it into a harmonious set for the palate.
Cremous sausages and condiments can be fine, but they do not give the same result. The oil, this liquid gold, is truly the only undisputed protagonist. But which one to choose from the many on the market? There is not only extra virgin olive oil, to be always chosen with excellent quality and cold squeezed, above all because it is used raw. There are also oils that, due to their characteristics, can best enhance the flavor of a salad rather than another.
Special oils for gourmet salads
Pumpkin seed oil
Typical of the regions of Bassa Austria and Burgerland, but recently available also in Italy especially on online sales sites of organic products, it is an oil particularly suitable for winter salads with green leaves. Apart from the flavor, it is a very healthy oil as rich in antioxidants. It has a very particular decisive and robust flavor that recalls walnut and roasting.
A real delight on winter salads, based on potatoes, asparagus, eggs, onions and mushrooms. He marries the big one with apple cider vinegar but also with that of wine.
Walnut oil
In Piedmont it was used in Bagna Cauda. This oil is also easily available in natural supply stores, while in supermarkets I have never seen it. It is obtained from the pressing of walnut kernels and has an original and at the same time delicate taste.
It is rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids that abound in blue fish and that are excellent vasoprotectors and anti -aggregating. Excellent on salads of leaves of all kinds, from keeping to crunchy, enriched with hard cheeses, fish, apples, pears, celery and beans.
Hazelnut oil
It is a precious and expensive oil. Here we are not very used with us, but in France it is very common. Like previous oils, this also contains precious substances for our well -being. At the table it gives its best on salads of bitter leaves, field and rocket, with mushrooms, peaches, pears, strawberries, spinach and “strong” cheeses such as gorgonzola, Parmesan or seasoned pecorino, or chicken meat.
It goes well with acetes with low degrees of acidity such as the Balsamic of Modena and those of fruit.
Sesame oil
In Asian cuisine it is widespread, but it is easily found in Italy. It gives an original note reminiscent of that of the hazelnut. This is also a refined oil, rich in important nutrients. In the kitchen it is perfect on typical Asian salads, but it also goes well with those with broccoli, carrots, cabbage, beef and tuna.
Flax seed oil
It is not a particularly loved oil, even if among all it is the one that boasts the greatest quantity of Omega-3. It has a decisive, almost intrusive flavor, and for this reason it must be dosed with a spoon and not with the spoon. It is good if combined with aromatic herbs.
Pistachios
It is a precious oil not only because it is rich in minerals and antioxidants, but also very expensive as it is extracted from pistachios selected with care from Bronte, in Sicily. Try it with orange -based salads, Treviso radicchio, asparagus, tuna, eggs, avocado and swordfish.
Flavored extra virgin igi oils
In addition to these oils, we must mention the flavored extra virgin igi oils that have been enjoying considerable success for some years: orange, lemon, Tropea onion, garlic, pepper, mint, elderberry and so on, since the “flavors” increase continuously.
How to keep olive oil
As regards conservation, as for extra virgin olive oil, the rule of the dark bottle is worth, sheltered from light and heat. Only the flax oil oil requires, once open, the conservation in the refrigerator.
