Dressing to go over a Greek Salad + Greek Salad

[Northern Lass]

Or over any Salad

does anyone have a decent recipe
or better still which one do you recommend to buy

and do you have a great Greek Salad recipe pls too

[Antie Em]

We just use red wine vinegar

[peterd]

1 part balsamic viniger, 2 parts olive oil, salt, black peper, you can added garlic or and shallots to it

[SRD]

Traditionally Greek salad is just dressed with a sprinkling of dried oregano, a lot of Greek olive oil (it's lighter, greener and more flowery than Italian or Spanish) and a splash of wine vinegar with maybe a graunch of black pepper.

For the salad itself we used to cut tomato, cucumber, green pepper, onion and feta into equal sized chunks, mix them in a bowl with some stoned Kalamata olives then dress it, but more recently we cut red onion, green pepper and cucumber into very thin slices then add the chunks of tomato, feta and olives before dressing it. The thinly sliced stuff holds the dressing better.

Some add sliced cabbage and/or lettuce but this, though commonplace, isn't accepted as a true Greek salad, I understand there are consumer and tourism laws in Greece preventing it from being called a Greek Salad.

Our standard vinaigrette is a teaspoon of Dijon mustard stirred into a tablespoon of white wine vinegar then whisk in a tablespoon of garlic flavoured olive oil (saves all that messing about crushing garlic with salt), add a pinch of salt then keep whisking in as much olive oil as will emulsify (it can be as much as three or more tablespoons). Then a graunch of black pepper. I prefer to use a small hand whisk as I think it emulsifies better and you can feel the texture of the dressing but some just put all the ingredients in a jar and shake like mad.

For those that find Hellman's too rich you can add yoghurt (we prefer Greek sheeps youghurt as it's sharper) to lighten it.

In one of her cookery books (not the original 3 volume cookery course) Delia has a balsamic vinegar, mustard and walnut oil vinaigrette to dress a warm puy lentil, walnut and sheeps cheese salad which is very good.

[Antie Em]

I asked the family Greek and he agrees with SRD - olive oil from Bapou's olive groves and just a splash of vinegar

[snoopysue]

A good one when the tomatoes aren't very flavoursome is to add a spoonful of honey to an oil and vinigar dressing, it helps bring out the flavour of the toms. If you've only got thick honey, then warm it first in the microwave.

[Rob]

This is a good thread.Handy tips.Much appreciated.

[Northern Lass]

Yes thanks all I had a go last night and it was a disaster
so I will try the above again.

[SRD]

A good one when the tomatoes aren't very flavoursome is to add a spoonful of honey to an oil and vinigar dressing, it helps bring out the flavour of the toms. If you've only got thick honey, then warm it first in the microwave.

My Black Country grandfather always had sugar and malt vinegar on his tomatoes.

[peterd]

A good one when the tomatoes aren't very flavoursome is to add a spoonful of honey to an oil and vinigar dressing, it helps bring out the flavour of the toms. If you've only got thick honey, then warm it first in the microwave.

My Black Country grandfather always had sugar and malt vinegar on his tomatoes.

i like doing my toms with soya sauce