A Basic Vinaigrette

The basic vinaigrette is a wonderful starter in the world of cooking

This was one of the first things I learned to make consistently and well. Here are the reasons I think that this is a great starting point for a clueless cook.

1. It teaches improvisation and flexibility by providing a framework in which you can can can experiment.
2. It is full of lots of fuzzy terms like "until done," pinch and brisk that you can get more comfortable with.
3. It's really really easy to do and pretty hard to screw up.
4. Once you have tried it, you will never go back to a commercial vinaigrette.
5. It takes very few tools and very few ingredients.
   

First, what tools do you need to need...

• A bowl (non-aluminum) (I often use a cereal bowl)
• A whisk (You might be able to get away with a fork, but put the oil in slower)
  

I hear about people doing this in a blender or a food processor or with a stick blender. I don't buy that at all. I don't think they produce a meaningfully different result and you will spend ten times as long cleaning them as you would using them. A whisk and bowl are easy to use and easier to clean.

What ingredients do you need?
This is where it gets fun. For the most basic vinaigrette all you need is:

• Vinegar(s) (any kind other than white vinegar, though white wine vinegar is fine) [Some]
  
• Salt [A pinch]
  
• Oil [Roughly two to four times as much as vinegar]
  
• Flavoring [to taste]
  

Now, on to the preparation.

1. Slosh some vinegar in the bowl
2. Add a pinch of salt
3. Add some flavoring (more on this later)
4. Start whisking
5. Slowly stream the oil in. (this should take about 20-30 seconds per tablespoon of oil)
   

You can stop here, the rest is just bonus material.

Now for my best tips

• DON'T MEASURE ANYTHING!
• Taste, taste, taste, taste, taste
• If you don't know how much to add of anything, add less than you think you need, taste, add more if you need it. This applies to the salt, oil and flavorings
• When vague/fuzzy terms are used, it often means "to taste." When you see them in many recipes, start small and taste often.
• Only make as much as you need for one meal. This lets you try this again and again, and if you don't like what you make, throw it out and try again, it's less than a dollars worth of ingredients.

More Details

• Flavorings. These can be just about anything you can think of...any spice in your cupboard, mustard, fish sauce, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, shallots, sesame seeds, sugar, honey, wine, lemon juice, lime zest, pepper, chili powder, etc. etc. etc
• Start with just a few flavors at a time. Too many at once can cause problems.
• A few drops of fish sauce won't be tasted but can really improve the flavor.
• If you add garlic, the finer it is, the stronger it will taste. A garlic press will give about the strongest flavor.
• Salt is required.
• I usually try to end up with about 2-3 Tablespoons of vinaigrette per serving.
• You don't technically need to use vinegar, you can also use lemon, lime or orange juice.
• The less oil you use, the more tart the dressing will be. When I make a very tart vinaigrette, I will often add something sweet to the salad to offset the tartness like dried cherries, dried apricots, poached pears, etc.
• You can fix a vinaigrette pretty easily. Too tart--add more oil, too mild--add more vinegar, overly flavored--add more oil and vinegar, too mild--add more flavoring.
• If you have some left over, you can save it, but the oil and vinegar will separate. I usually keep it in a sealed container and just shake it. You can also just whisk it briefly again
• There are things that will help keep the oil and vinegar from separating. The most common one is dried mustard--delicious and effective. Honey also works. You can also use a bit of egg yolk, but do so at your own risk, the FDA says it's dangerous. I still vote for making what you need and not bothering to save it or just remixing it before using it.
• Aluminum can react with vinegar and give you vinaigrette an 'off' taste
• Waiting an hour or two before using a vinaigrette can help the flavors mix, but I often don't bother.
  

Examples:

Balsamic

• Balsamic Vinegar
• Shallot
• Garlic
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper

Asian

• Rice Vinegar
• Ginger (Grated)
  
• Soy Sauce
• Fish Sauce (Two Drops)
  
• Mirin
• Salt
• Sesame oil (Light or Dark)

Poppy Seed

• Sugar (one tablespoons per quarter cup of oil)
  
• Salt
• Lime juice
  
• Dry Mustard
  
• Minced Onion
  
• Oil (whatever you like)
  
• poppy seeds (one tablespoons per quarter cup of oil)
  

Where To Now?

I am often envious of anyone who grew up in a home where good food was important, particularly if they were actually involved in the cooking. When I started out in my pursuit of producing good food I had so little experience with cooking growing up it was hard for me to even follow a recipe correctly.

Unfortunately most recipes are written for people that already know how to cook.
-- A. Brown

It is amazing how often recipes are filled with cooking terms and procedures that are non-obvious to the clueless cook.

Here are some of my favorites I struggled with. These generally fall in to one of three categories.

1. Not really knowing what it means.

• Sweat
• Shock
• Saute
• Sear
• Braise
• Roast
• Blanch

2. Subjective and qualitative decisions.

• Pinch
• Liberally

3. Both #1 and #2

• Chop
• Dice

While a little research can help with #1, but #2 and #3 are far more difficult to address. These are the things that the aforementioned people learned at some point during their culinary development and that I needed to learn before I could even successfully wield a book of recipes.

The Journey Begins

I did not grow up in a house that placed any real value on tasty food. Food was for sustenance and little more. There are those who live to eat, and those who eat to live; my house was the former kind. I actually didn't even realize that I lived to eat until I was in my early twenties and I had my first extraordinary dining experience. I ate at a restaurant called The Common Grill in Chelsea, Michigan. This was food as I had never tasted it before, from the fantastic basket of freshly baked rolls still warm from the oven to the transcendent creme brulee I had for dessert. This was a revelation.

This next step in my journey began on the day I realized, quite to my surprise, that I could make food that I actually enjoyed eating. This was a complete fluke. I went cherry picking and ended up with far too many cherries, so I decided to try making a cherry pie for dinner and I discovered that not only did it look good and smell good but it actually tasted good as well. I had never been taught anything about cooking and everything I had made previously, though edible, never actually resulted in something I looked forward to eating.

In my new found enthusiasm for food I decided to start cooking more often. This was a disaster. I realized that knowing how to prepare delicious food was not obvious, and following recipes was doubly disastrous. In virtually every case, either the recipe was wrong or I was doing it wrong. On top of that I could hardly even tell which one, and even when I knew it was my fault, I still didn't know what went wrong. So...I decided that cooking wasn't one of my talents and moved on.

Then I stumbled across Good Eats. This was a cooking show that appealed to my inner geek. It was an engineers approach to cooking, a mechanics approach to cooking, something analytical I could understand, not all of that fuzzy, "taste it", "a 'pinch' more", "until it looks right" or "until 'done'." He wasn't there to teach a recipe, he was there to teach the preparation of delicious food in a straightforward, understandable, repeatable way. Give a man some Salmon Fillet en Papillote with Julienne Vegetable and he will eat for a meal, teach a man to make Salmon Fillet en Papillote with Julienne Vegetable and he will learn to cook beef, pork, shrimp, fish, etc. via the "pouch method" and can produce dozens of delicious meals.

That was just the beginning.