Salad - Grilled Salmon Salad

If you have some leftover grilled salmon, then you have the starting ingredient for a magnificent salad. Now if you don't have any left over, but you are willing and eager to grill some especially for this dish, then all praise to you -- and your reward awaits. For grilled salmon, click here or click here.

Here the salmon is shown with some of the EVOO-soy sauce-lemon juice marinade it was cooked in. Incorporate this sauce --- of course -- into the dressing for the salad.

This salad is easy to compose. All measure of ingredients can be added to the final production -- from artichoke hearts to croutons to figs to dolmas (cooked rice wrapped in grape leaves) -- but what is demonstrated here is the classic core of a magnificent salad.

Nothing against all those potential additions, but minimalism has its virtues, too.

Salmon can't be beat in a salad. It both contrasts with and complements the salad greens, a sort of culinary contradiction that works in our favor -- or maybe it would be better says works in our flavor.

The salad can be wild arugula, red leaf, green leaf, romaine, butter lettuce, baby spinach, or just about any kind. They are all delicious, and they all go well with grilled salmon.

Obviously, we are going to want something in here besides the salmon.

Start with some argula. Other good choices are: mesclun, butter lettuce, and romaine lettuce. The tomatoes are tomatoes-on-the-vine, but Romas are also a good choice. You could even pop for a heirloom tomato here. Actually, heirlooms would be an especially good choice, and you can choose which color -- from yellow to red to orangish -- most appeals to you.

Add a couple of slices of cheese. Here we have Monterey Jack but feta would be good, or Port Salut or aged Gouda.

Throw in some capers also. Capers are small but they add a great deal.

This one is made of:

- extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) For EVOO, click here.

- red wine vinegar (fresh squeezed lemon juice is great also, as is balsamic vinegar)

- Dijon mustard

- coarse ground sea salt

- coarse ground black pepper

Mix these ingredients together in a small bowl with a whisk if you have one, or with a fork if you don't. Spoon the mixture over the salad, and be generous in your spooning.

This is all, by the way, so very different from "salmon salad," where canned salmon is mixed with mayo and other ingredients. That can be delicious, too, but here we are talking fresh ingredients.

Speaking of fresh squeezed lemon juice, by the way, serve a wedge to fresh lemon alongside this salad when it is fully composed and ready to place before an appreciative diner.

Fully blended

Such a simple dressing to prepare, but such a mouth-pleasing result from this simple preparation!

It tastes so good because all of the ingredients are fresh -- and because all of them are classics. Bring classics together and you really have something.

Brutally simple, and pretty delicious.

Serve with some toasted sourdough bread which can be used to sop up any leftover dressing.

(If there is none, just pour in some more EVOO at the end and sop up that). For EVOO, click here.

Salmon have an absolutely incredible life cycle. Freshwater streams are where it all begins, as that's where the eggs are laid. Eggs become fry, which then morph into other stages in the life cycle. Smolts are one stage and they and their predecessor stages have been in freshwater for years. Smolts themselves become adapted to brackish and salt water, eventually. They then transition to the ocean as grown fish, and in the ocean they can spend up to five years before maturing sexually and then returning to the streams in which they were born. It is difficult to taste all this in grilled salmon, or is it?

Pictures, pictures, pictures

Series within series, actually. Food & Cooking, for example, then -- within that -- series on vegetables, fruits, seafood, meat, etc. Books, too. Ideas, too. Travel, too. Click on "featured hubs" at the top of the right-hand column, under my profile, for the complete list. Key virtues:. pictures, clear step-by-step text. Delicious -- whether foods or ideas! All members of this series are found in Lee White's Department Store.

Real Meal. Unlike fancy food mags, where images are hyped and food itself is secondary, all pix shown here are from a real meal, prepared and eaten by me and my friends. No throwing anything away till perfection is achieved. This is the real deal --- a Real meal.