This dressing is a vinaigrette. It is garlicky, salty, and goes amazingly well on all sorts of things. Use it on savory salads, on top of roasted potatoes, to dip carrot sticks in, on top of grilled protein, or as a marinade. Once you get the hang of making this recipe, you’ll be able to easily make it with no recipe at all. This is Silvia’s favorite salad dressing by far. Believe it or not, she will whip this up in the morning to put over a salad for her school lunch.
To make the dressing, you should ideally have a mortar and pestle. We use this set, made by Le Cruset, but anything should work.
The Salad Dressing
Ingredients
1 clove garlic
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp capers
2 tsp dijon mustard
1 tablespoon plus 1 tsp white wine vinegar
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Method
- Place the garlic clove and salt in the mortar and pestle. Mash to a paste. Add the capers and mash to a paste.
- Add the dijon mustard and white wine vinegar. Mix until totally combined.
- While mixing continuously, stream in the olive oil. Keep mixing vigorously until the dressing forms an emulsion and everything is well mixed.
- Taste the dressing and adjust the seasoning to your liking.
- Pour over your favorite salad, roasted potatoes, grilled chicken or tofu, or anything else you can think of.
Notes
This is a very simple recipe, but incredibly delicious. The capers replace anchovies in the original, and I think they do a great job of adding a nice briny saltiness to the dressing while keeping everything vegetarian. Silvia likes to keep the caper bits somewhat chunky, I like them more mashed up. There is no wrong answer. The dijon mustard serves as an emulsifier; it makes it easier for all of the ingredients to stay combined. Even with the mustard, this will separate after it sits for a while. No worried, just mix it up some more and it will come back together. If you don’t have a mortar and pestle, just push the garlic through a garlic press and mince the capers as fine as possible. Just make the recipe in a small bowl and it will be great.
This dressing is adapted from David Tanis’ French Potato and Green Bean Salad.