Back in the Before Times, I often filled one of the tiny seats in economy class, headed to parts unknown in pursuit of client projects and contracts. On one of these sojourns, the in-flight magazine featured an article on Giancarlo and Katie Caldesi, who run London's eponymous restaurant/cooking school/cookery shop - "Caffe Caldesi" and La Cucina Caldesi and the "Caldesi in Campagna" at Bray, Berkshire.
They're also the authors of the cookbook - Around the World in 120 Salads. While researching the book, Vietnamese chefs told the Caldesis that the world's best salads share six key elements. The result is a set of guidelines you'll find useful for the rest of your salad-eating days (note, a single ingredient often checks off more than one of the six boxes):
- Dry - Salt, pepper, dried spices or herbs add a bit of kick
- Wet - Fresh citrus slices or other sources of juiciness
- Sweet - Often it's a pinch of sugar, a drop of maple syrup or honey, or fructose from ripe fruits of choice
- Sour - Providing a counter-point to the Sweet element, citrus juice, vinegar or other sources of tartness
- Soft - Examples include avocado, cooked beans, dried dates or edible flowers...
- Crunchy - carrots, sliced scallions, toasted nuts, fried onions or other toothsome textural ingredients
Wine Pairing Advice - It's difficult to pair wines with a salad course until the details of the salad are known. Here, the basics of food-and-wine pairing (match body weight and be sure the acidity or sweetness of the wine exceeds that of the dish) don't help much, as salads often feature sweet and acidic elements in the same dish. This makes your pairing task truly perplexing, as acidic wines rarely work well with sweet elements, and vice versa.
As a general rule, I opt for a wine on the acidic side but that also offers some richness of fruit - a very dry rosé, an Alsatian white, unoaked chardonnay, etc. In general, the salad course is the domaine of white wine - in fact, I can't think of a red that would pair well with salad, though as soon as I say that, someone will write in with a notable exception - please do so!
