Strawberry Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing
some desserts identify as a salad
things you’ll need: strawberries, goat cheese, optional nuts/needs, white wine (or your preferred) vinegar, neutral oil (like grapeseed) or 1/2 olive oil and 1/2 neutral oil, shallot, sugar, mustard powder or Dijon, poppy seeds, greens like spinach, salt and pepper.
For this salad, I went with the folks at Kitchn, this one from Emma Christensen. Most poppy seed dressings seem to take on this basic proportion: 1:1:2 (sugar:vinegar:oil). If you like more tang and less sweet, adjust accordingly. America’s Test Kitchen says 1/3c:1/2c:1/4c with red wine vinegar. James Beard’s American Cookery says 1 ½c:2/3c:2c using “vinegar”. As with all dressings, pick the proportions that fit your palate, but don’t skip the onion and mustard. If you want something a little creamy, add a dollop of mayo.
Incidentally gluten-free, vegetarian, and skip the goat cheese or use a non-dairy substitute for vegan.
Chapter 226
You’ve spent a ridiculous amount of your life trying to define yourself. You still haven’t gotten it right. Occasionally you get your point across and feel “seen” and then language evolves and the identities you prescribe yourself become ill-fitting and even problematic.
You’ve been You the whole time, but also a shapeshifter. You’ve been defined by your work, family, ethnicity, race, social class, dietary restrictions, spiritual and/or religious practice, accomplishments, geography, the people you do or don’t have sex with, gender presentation, pet ownership, collecting habits, music taste, hobbies, aesthetics, and every other variable that makes up the whole You, in all its glory.
Salad is great because, much like you, it can be both anything and many things all at once. Generally speaking, it’s cold (except when it’s not) and made to include raw veggies (except when it’s full of roasted beets). Occasionally they center themselves with grains or legumes. Sometimes they are salty, filled with starch, or masquerading as a dip.
Maybe you are a salad comprised of many parts and containing a fine selection of whatever ingredients best suit you on each given day. Today, you are sweet and full of sunshine. It doesn’t happen very often, so go with it.
Find strawberries grown as close to your home as possible because they are better. Waiting for fruit to be in season is annoying, but so was waiting to be old enough to see R-rated movies without adults present.
Pick up some poppyseeds or use the leftover jar from Ham Buns or the last time you made scones.
Whisk together 1/4c of white wine vinegar (or whatever feels most You) with a 1/4c of sugar. Finely chop or grate one small shallot (unless you are more of an Onion Powder kind of person) and whisk it in, along with a dash of ground mustard (or Dijon if that’s more authentic). Add to that one big Tablespoon of poppy seeds and a bit of salt.
While whisking, dribble in 1/2c of neutral oil (unless a blend of olive oil and neutral oil feels more appropriate to your salad experience) until thoroughly incorporated.
Make a bed of spinach or super greens or whichever greens seem to meet you where you are. Wash and slice your strawberries into hearts or rings, depending on your emotional state. Toast some almonds in a pan or pour them from a package or substitute hazelnuts because they remind you of Nutella and sometimes you like to dip your strawberries in Nutella and no one can stop you.
Crumble in some goat cheese (or feta if you are feeling a bit salty).
If you are rebellious enough to be entirely yourself, despite the ways your parts seem to clash and collide, then eat this salad for dessert.
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