A salad without dressing is just a pile of limp, uninspired lettuce. It is the dressing that makes a salad sing. It brings the greens to life; it makes the produce productive. What was once mere vitamins and roughage and something that sticks to your teeth becomes, with the measured application of a dressing, a dish to praise and celebrate. And it is all due to some oil and a little vinegar, and maybe yogurt or a splash of lemon juice. Salad dressing is something you can make yourself; the possibilities are endless. Try adding a combination of different herbs to oil and vinegar, or go for a sweet dressing with honey and a bit of fruit. Best of all, dressings are both fast and easy to make -- unless you make seven different dressings at one time. Then they take longer than you might think and are kind of a hassle. I made many dressings for this story, both vinaigrettes (oil mixed with vinegar or lemon juice) and yogurt-based dressings, all beautifully balanced in flavor. Each one was perfect with lettuce, but many could also be served with vegetables or even fruit. Here are six of the recipes I used. I started with a bistro vinaigrette. This is the dressing we have on hand at all times at my house, a dressing I sometimes eat literally every day of the week. It is my favorite dressing, and if you try it, it will probably become your favorite dressing, too. It is so good that I decided to write a story about salad dressings just so I could write about bistro vinaigrette. Tips for emulsions You know how oil doesn't mix with water or vinegar or egg yolk? How it separates into an oily mess? When you emulsify a dressing, you pour oil very slowly into vinegar (or lemon juice) and usually something like mustard or an egg yolk while whisking it together very fast. Through a miracle of science that would take a long time to explain, and I'd probably get it wrong, the oil and other ingredients blend into one another and can stay combined for up to several days. If they separated again before you're done with the dressing, just shake it vigorously together in a jar with a lid.
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