Mediterranean Fresh: A Compendium of One-Plate Salad Meals and Mix-and-Match Dressings

by Joyce Goldstein, Dan Barber (Foreword by)

Overview

A treasure trove of salad meals and mix-and-match dressings within reach of everyday cooking.

In the Mediterranean, salad means anything from tabbouleh to white beans and prawns in a lemony dressing to small plates of mezze, antipasti, and tapas. Joyce Goldstein shows you how to make 140 of these delicious, healthful, easy-to-prepare dishes for a sensuous and satisfying meal.

With thirty versatile dressings, you'll expand your salad horizons. Just by changing the dressing and garnish, you can make a chopped salad Moroccan, Spanish, or Turkish. Roasted peppers can be Italian with anchovies and olives or spicy with a Tunisian harissa dressing. Beets and greens can move to France with walnut vinaigrette or to the Middle East with tahini dressing. Even a carrot can become exotic with a Moroccan citrus-cinnamon dressing.

Joyce shows you the art of dressing a salad and how to use dressings as marinades, spreads, dips, and finishing sauces. Along the way you'll learn how to taste, balance flavors, and develop your palate.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393065008
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	05/17/2008
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	7.30(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Joyce Goldstein is a consultant to the restaurant and food industries and a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. For twelve years she was chef-owner of Square One, the pioneering San Francisco Mediterranean restaurant. She lives in San Francisco, California.

Dan Barber is a chef and owner of several restaurants including Blue Hill in Manhattan and Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, New York.

Editorial Reviews

Chef Goldstein, author of several Mediterranean cookbooks, focuses here on "146 delicious salads and small plates... to show the versatility of Mediterranean dressings as marinades and finishing sauces." And with these, she hopes to change the way the average American diner thinks of salad-as a bowl of leafy greens tossed with a dressing, served as a precursor to a meal. In fact, leafy greens make up only one of seven categories included in Goldstein's collection (others include fruit, bean, and grain salads as well as protein-based seafood, meat and poultry salads). Although many ingredients are repeated, Goldstein manages to make each recipe fresh and enticing. Readers may be familiar with some of the traditional classics such as Panzanella (bread salad) and Salad Niçoise. However, the real magic of the book lies with the lesser-known dishes like Italian Parsley Salad with Pecorino, Catalan Salt Cod and Pepper Salad, and Vitello Tonnato (veal with creamy tuna sauce). Well researched, and highly informative, each section begins with a list of ingredients and their definitions, while each recipe includes history on the dish as well as some of Goldstein's related personal experiences. This book is a delight, an inspiring collection. (May)

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Publishers Weekly

Goldstein was the chef/owner of Square One, the popular San Francisco restaurant, for 12 years and is the author of 20 other cookbooks, many of them on the foods of the Mediterranean. Her latest book grew out of "Salad Boot Camp," a workshop she conducts for chefs. It features more than 100 fresh, lively recipes for Mediterranean-inspired salads, from Tunisian Roasted Pepper Salad to Venetian Smoked Trout Salad with Lemon Cream Dressing. The salads are followed by recipes for dressings of all sorts, from citrus vinaigrettes to Moroccan charmoula. The salad recipes suggest alternate vinaigrettes and many other variations, and Goldstein offers ideas for using the dressings in a variety of ways; headnotes and sidebars provide a vast amount of information on Mediterranean cuisines, ingredients, and techniques. Highly recommended.

—Judith Sutton

Library Journal