Vinaigrette from Good Eats Season 1 Episode 4 - Salad Daze

I’ve been slacking on my good eats recipies, so here’s another easy one, Vinaigrette from S1E4 - Salad Daze. It’s a basic vinaigrette that’s a solid baseline for modification. Even as-is it’s pretty damn tasty. I made it with Sous Vide strip steaks, 131 for 2 hours then a sear in the cast iron.

The steaks were good, but this is a salad dressing recipe. So here goes. First, some red wine vinegar. (I was actually almost totally out, so I halved the recipe, but kept all the ratios the same) The only special equipment I used was a food service squeeze bottle, like these, though you totally could make this in any container with a tight fitting lid, like a mason jar.

Next we add olive oil and Dijon mustard

Then garlic

Shake it like it owes you money until it reaches a nice creamy consistency, then let it sit at room temp for an hour. It will look like this after said shaking.

After an hour, strain out the garlic and put it back into the container, it’s ready to serve.

I made a salad with baby spinach, red onion, and goat cheese. The dressing was a solid basic dressing. Much like a lot of the other recipes in the first season, it’s not anything fancy and it doesn’t require any special equipment or skills. It’s a great easy dressing to have in your arsenal, and I imagine it would be a great baseline for coming up with something you really like. Try different kinds of mustard, different vinegar, add some spices, whatever. Overall, a very good start.