Green Salad with Classic Vinaigrette

This is another one of those recipes I make so often that I don't use a recipe anymore. The dressing recipe is from Julia Child's Kitchen Wisdom and can be adapted in many different ways. It only takes a couple of minutes to make your own salad dressing and the result is so much better than anything you can get out of a bottle. As for the salad, add any vegetables or other toppings as you choose. This just happens to be my favorite combination.

Time: 10 minutes
Serves: 2 as a side, 1 as a meal

Ingredients

• 8-10 lettuce leaves - romaine or green leaf lettuce
• 1 small garlic clove (or 1 TBSP onion or shallot)
• 1 1/2 tsp dijon mustard
• squeeze from half a lemon
• 1 1/2 tsp Balsamic vinegar (or any other vinegar you like)
• 3 TBSP crumbled bleu cheese (optional)
• 1 tsp each of salt and pepper
• 1/8 cup of olive oil
• 1 fresh tomato, croutons, poached or hard-boiled egg and/or other toppings as you please

Prep

1. Wash your lettuce, peel and finely chop your garlic, onion or shallot and prep all of your other toppings. (boil your egg, chop your tomato, etc.)
2. In a bowl large enough to toss your salad, add the chopped garlic along with 1 1/2 tsp dijon, squeeze of half a lemon, 1 1/2 tsp of balsamic vinegar, and 1 tsp each of salt and pepper. Stir all of this together.

3. Stabilize your bowl on the counter by setting on top of a dish towel.
4. While stirring the mixture with your right hand, drizzle in the olive oil slowly with your left hand. If you're able to keep stirring the whole time, the mixture will all come together, which is called emulsifying. If you can't keep stirring, the dressing will still be tasty - the olive oil will just separate from the rest of it.

5. Once you've got all the olive oil in, crumble in your bleu cheese and stir again.

6. Add all of your salad toppings and toss together, using a spoon to get the dressing off the bottom of the bowl and coat the ingredients. I like to add my tomatoes and egg to the dressing first, toss those together, then add the lettuce and croutons.
7. Serve immediately.