Dressing

She's named after food and lives where I work as a pantry cook.  And yesterday, with her compliment to the chef and request for a recipe, she made me feel like a celebrity chef today. She asked for the vinaigrette recipe that I made for Mother's Day.

It was a simple vinaigrette. I jazzed it up a bit because we were out of a particular kind of mustard that goes into all of our vinaigrette and mixed oils because I wanted a hint of the olive oil flavor without the overpowering effect that can often be bestowed by having too much of that kind of oil in a vinaigrette, but still, I stuck to the code. 1 part vinegar to 3 parts oil. Really simple, yet she liked it. So, when I went out in the dinning room to talk to her about cooking and instruct her on how to put together this recipe, I thought of you, dear blog reader, and I smiled inside.

If the food is good enough to eat and ask for a recipe afterwords, if I can teach someone something new about my beloved art form, the craft of beautiful food, then all the hours spent in isolation are somehow worthwhile. The majority of my time is spent chopping vegetables and placing cold foods into containers. Yet the joy that one person gets out of something in one of those containers can make me feel like a super star. I did that! Yes, it was me that made your taste buds sing for joy. I like the feeling more than I can say. It makes standing on my feet for 8 hours in a hot kitchen risking being bitten by sharp objects suddenly seem like the most rational use of time.

So, for those of you wanting the recipe, here it is. And, I will explain what I told her, the woman named for food, about this particular operation.

Red Wine Vinaigrette

1/2 teaspoon stone ground mustard
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
1 cup canola oil
salt and pepper to taste

In a blender, combine first three ingredients. With blender running, slowly add the oils until you hear the motor of the blender tighten. More or less may be needed depending on the emulsification. Add salt and pepper to taste. You may want to add more or less sugar. The trick is to taste it and see what you think. Also, the mustard is the emulsifying agent. It will make the vinegar and oil stick together instead of separating. Finally, you can change the recipe by using a different type of mustard, substituting lemon, white wine vinegar and poppy seeds for the red wine vinegar to come up with a lemon poppy seed vinaigrette. If you would prefer to have a white color to your vinaigrette  (in the lemon poppy seed case) add a 1/2 teaspoon or so of egg whites with the oil. It will astound you.