If you're really short of time, a simple vinaigrette dressing, consisting of 3 or 4 parts of

good oil, 1 part wine vinegar, and a little salt and pepper, is perfectly appropriate for many

salads. If you have the time to be a little more creative, add herbs or spices, tomato paste or

mustard before whipping all into an emulsion with a wire whip or simply shaking the ingredients

in a tightly-capped bottle to form a temporary emulsion.

More than one way to dress up a salad

Salads offer more room for creativity than any other course in the meal. Haul out the

salad bowl and your fingers itch to pluck flowers from the bouquet on the table, pinch leaves

from anything growing on the window sill or in the yard, sprinkle seeds, nuts, dried fruits and

other tidbits from various containers in the cupboard. It is also the course most likely to please

every palate unless, of course, you went overboard in the wild and exotic ingredients department.

Even if you've planned a simple tossed salad, select your ingredients for contrasting

colors, textures and shapes. Pay attention to flavor as well as color. You can chop and mix the

ingredients hours before dinner. Salad keeps well in the refrigerator as long as you don't add the

dressing. For more speed in serving, put the dressing in the bottom of the bowl, add the salad

ingredients without tossing and refrigerate. An ingenious cook puts serving spoons in the bowl

over the dressing before adding the greens to keep them separate. Then at serving time she

tosses, ready to serve. Takes less than a minute.

With just a little more work, you can create a composed salad from the same ingredients.

Composed salads are much favored by white tablecloth restaurants and higher quality caterers

because they offer great presentation with little extra cost and relatively little additional work.

The disadvantage of composed salads is that you cannot build them too far in advance of serving,

partly because the ingredients must look their very best, but also because they are served

individually, and that takes a lot of refrigerator space if stored. These salads require more

planning and time than tossed salads.

Concentrate on simplicity, creativity and inspiration when building a composed salad.

You can create a stunning visual art work without being either a professional chef or an artist. If

you have artistic inclinations, you will enjoy the job thoroughly and find it a reasonably easy

task. If you don't, you will still like putting the ingredients together though the product may not

be a saleable art work.

You plan a composed salad in two stages. First, decide at the kitchen table with a pencil

and paper what ingredients you would like to use, keeping availability and seasonal aspects in

mind. Then, with your shopping list in hand, go to the market. Substitute your originally planned

ingredients according to what is available in the produce section, what looks freshest and what is

still within your budget. When substituting, keep in mind your objective of flavor balance,

contrasting textures, colors and shapes.

Vegetables and fruits out of season may look good, but their flavor is usually minimal

and their cost extravagant. (Just look at the so-called "vine-ripe" tomatoes in January.) In your

initial planning stage, think in terms of seasonal items that are not usual salad ingredients, or that

you can prepare in an unusual way, either by the cooking method or how you cut them up. For

instance, when cooks add eggs to salads, they usually hard-boil them, then they slice them or cut

into wedges. Why not make a plain omelet instead, sliver it into thin strips, then add the strips to

your salad? Another example is peeled broccoli stems cut into thin rounds, match sticks, ovals or

tiny cubes for varied shapes. You can come up with dozens of others ideas.

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