Issue #204: Two Seasonal Salads
Ramping Up Your Ranch, A Chinese Salad of Chilled Asparagus
Every year, when the wintry weather first turns sunny and warm, people flock to their greenmarkets looking for fresh, local produce. If you live in California or the South, you might find something fresh and local. But here in the northern climes, it’s still mostly shriveled root vegetables and wool. The farmers need more time.
That doesn’t mean you can’t still nod to seasonal eating. And this week I made two salads that to me, at least, say spring.
The first is more a dressing than a salad, per se. While contemplating what to do with a large stash of ramps I brought back to New Hampshire from Manhattan’s Union Square Greenmarket, salad queen Emily Nunn’s ranch dressing came to mind. This creamy, herby, garlicky dressing has been a family favorite since it first appeared in the second edition of her Department of Salad Substack back in October of 2020 under the recipe name “Barn Ranch.”
I attribute her recipe, this dressing, with getting me to stretch beyond my crutch of a lazy Italianate olive-oil-and-vinegar toss and actually whip together something more substantial and flavorful to coat my nightly bowl of leaves.
Since moving to New Hampshire and living just a couple of miles down the street from a fourth-generation dairy that sells all their milk and cream in glass jars (thank you McNamaras), I have started culturing almost all of our dairy products myself, including yogurt, buttermilk, sour cream, and crème fraîche. Knowing I can see and sometimes smell the cows that provide the milk gives me a leg up on my ranch, which I guess in some way makes good on the "barn” promise. I use my cultured dairy products interchangeably in recipes, adjusting for desired, texture, consistency, and fat content.
But it was the ramps looking back at me from my produce drawer, just a couple of days away from developing their latent sliminess that probably provides some sort of natural defense mechanism against grubby urban gourmand hunters and gatherers, that made me think of adding them to a batch of ranch. Herby and garlicky in their own right, I thought they’d be a good, seasonal substitute for some of the garlic and chive in the original. And they were.
RECIPE: Spring Ranch Dressing with Ramps
Makes about 1 1/2 cups
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
About a dozen ramps (wild garlic or leeks), depending on their size, cleaned and chopped (about 1/2 cup)
Sea salt
1 clove garlic, grated to a paste on a Microplane
1 cup cultured dairy product, such as sour cream, plain yogurt, buttermilk, kefir, or a combination
1/3 cup homemade or Hellmann’s mayonnaise (see mayo)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Plenty of freshly ground black pepper
Couple of dashes of Tabasco
½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
½ cup finely chopped fresh parsley
In a small frying pan, heat the olive oil over a medium flame. Add the chopped ramps and a pinch of salt and sauté for 2 or 3 minutes until wilted. Set aside to cool.
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the garlic, dairy product(s), mayonnaise, lemon juice, black pepper, Tabasco, Worcestershire, dill, parsley, and 3/4 teaspoon salt until blended. Whisk in the ramps, being sure to scrape all the flavorful oil out of the pan into the bowl. Although this dressing should be on the thick-but-pourable side, if it is too thick for your taste, thin it out with some cold water or milk. Chill.
The second spring salad I made not once, but twice this week was actually my attempt to recreate a cold Sichuan appetizer I once enjoyed in a Chinese restaurant in Flushing, Queens. As I’ve already written this season (see Issue #202), I love asparagus. I also love Chinese food (see Issues #193, #187, and many more). The two come together in this dish.
RECIPE: Chinese Chilled Asparagus Salad
Serves 4
1 pound. fresh asparagus, peeled and cut on the diagonal into 1-inch pieces
Sea salt
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
2 teaspoons light soy sauce
1 teaspoon rice vinegar
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon Sichuan pepper oil (optional)
1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds
Bring a medium pot of heavily salted water to a boil. Have a bowl of ice water nearby. Once the water boils, add the asparagus, and when it returns to a rolling boil, cook for about 1 minute, just until softened. You want them to remain a little crisp. Using a sieve or spider, lift the asparagus out of the boiling water and drop immediately into the ice water. Drain and leave in the sieve or colander to drip dry while you prepare the dressing.
In a small bowl, with a fork beat together the sesame oil, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, Sichuan pepper oil, if using, and a pinch of salt. Toss the aspargus with this dressing and garnish with toasted sesame seeds.
