Russians usually associate "vinaigrette" with the well-known salad of beets, carrots, onions, pickles and green peas, but this word has a basic meaning, from which this dish got its name.
Under this name, this salad is known only in Russia, more precisely, in the territory of the former USSR, but in Europe this word is called a dressing. The name comes from one of its three main ingredients - vinegar, which in French sounds like "vinaigre".
This dressing is quite simple to prepare: it contains only vegetable oil and vinegar in a ratio of about 3: 1, soft mustard (French, Bavarian), black pepper and salt. Olive oil is traditionally used as vegetable oil, but it will turn out no worse if unrefined sunflower oil is used, especially for the salad of the same name.
This dressing is applied to a fairly large number of dishes: various vegetable salads, meat, as a marinade for fish.
In addition to the main ingredients, various French or Provencal herbs and garlic may be present in the composition. Vinegar can be substituted for lemon juice, especially when used as a marinade for fish and seafood.
It is worth noting that if you add egg yolk here and beat well, you get one of the most popular sauces in the world - Provencal mayonnaise.
To prepare the dressing, you will need
- 3 tbsp olive or unrefined sunflower oil;
- 1 tbsp 3-6% vinegar or lemon juice;
- a teaspoon of soft mustard (optional);
- ground black and / or allspice (to taste);
- salt (to taste);
- fresh herbs or ready-made dry mixes (optional);
- garlic (optional)
Preparation
Pour vegetable oil, vinegar, mustard into a bowl, salt and pepper and mix thoroughly (do not beat). If you intend to use garlic, then crush a wedge with a knife, chop very finely and add to the dressing. Fresh herbs should also be finely chopped.
When everything is ready, put the dressing in the refrigerator for 15-20 minutes, and before use, be sure to mix well again, as the ingredients may delaminate.
Some useful tips to improve the taste of salad "Vinaigrette"
If you follow some simple advice, you can improve the taste of this dish and increase its benefits for the body.
1. Change the method of cooking beets: do not cook "in their uniforms", but bake in the oven in foil. This will slightly increase the cooking time, but will give good results.
2. Use fresh or frozen peas instead of canned green peas. It must first be boiled in a little water.
3. For dressing, use a mixture of unrefined sunflower oil with a little vinegar and black pepper. Do not use mustard.
4. If you want to add a "spring" ("summer") flavor to the salad, add a small amount of camelina oil. This oil is not made from mushrooms, as one might think, but from a herbaceous plant of the saffron milk cap, which belongs to the Cabbage family. This oil has a number of valuable properties and a slightly grassy taste and smell (the smell of freshly cut grass). Due to this, the vinaigrette will turn out to be "spring".
