Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Summer Salads and Mustard Mutiny

After what seemed like an endless week of unbearable heat, I jetted out to the East End of Long Island for cooler temperatures and fresh farm stand produce. My inner chef was longing to cook after it's week of dormancy. Knowing that every road side farm stand on the North Fork was teaming with fresh local produce, I couldn't wait to assemble a sweet summer salad.

There is nothing better than summer salads made with the freshest ingredients. Well, maybe a few things like chocolate labs and zero balance credit cards, but a summer salad paired with a perfectly seasoned grilled steak – YUMMY! The fresh summer salad consisted of fresh corn off the cob, fresh local string beans, campari tomatoes (see supra 'Tis the Tomato), and local red onions all dressed in a shallot dijon mustard dressing.

The core ingredients of this summer salad were delicious. The corn was as sweet as candy, the string beans had a crispness to them and well, the tomatoes….melt-in-your-mouth juicy! The salad epitomized all that is unique and wonderful to the North Fork. Both the Times and Newsday this past week ran several articles on the ever changing, but wonderfully bountiful North Fork of Long Island. As I stood in my parents' kitchen shucking the local sweet corn and chopping and dicing all my summer ingredients, I couldn't help but think that those articles got it right and it just doesn't get much better than this….until the Dijon mustard created a not-so-mellow mutiny.

The dressing for this summer salad calls for shallots, Dijon mustard, lemon juice, extra-virgin olive oil and salt and pepper. I generally like the taste of a dijony dressing so in keeping with my partial palate, I added a super-sized Dijon mustard tablespoon to my dressing. Wisk, whisk, whisk, stir, stir, stir, blend, blend, blend and voila! When I tasted my fully dressed summer salad, I had a bit of a gastrotack. Too much mustard!

The portion of mustard I used might be perfect for store bought, out-of-season veges, but with the fresh local produce in my salad, the sweetness of each vegetable was lost to the overpowering mustard. I was able to dilute a little of the mustary taste with extra lemon juice, but my next summer salad will be more salad and less mustard.

Despite this Dijon debacle, my inner chef was satisfied. After a hot week in New York City, it was a wonderful treat to be cooking in cooler temperatures with the freshest ingredients on one of the best spots on Earth!

Until next time….

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