Escarole Epiphany

Okay, let's be real. I'm not going to lie to you. We all know what I'm about and it's not salad. I love desserts. Bread makes me giddy. Give me pasta and I'm absolutely delighted. Sure, I truly enjoy some nice soups and vegetables, but it's not how you will capture my heart.

So then why is there a picture of a salad on this post? Well, I've realized that I was mistaken for all of my life up until last week. I was mistaken about escarole. I thought it was bitter and horrible and would have never bought it or put it into a salad with other greens. I would have never tried it. Ever.

But then I was shown the light by Molly at Orangette. Well, not personally by her obviously. I'm just one of thousands of readers. But her post last week convinced me that I was wrong. So I went to the store and bought some escarole. I wonder if there was a sizeable increase in the sale of escarole last week? Supermarket retailers are probably wondering what happened. I guess it would be the Orangette effect. There must be something about the letter O...

Anyway, I decided that I would also try and make my own salad dressing from scratch. I put some sea salt, ground pepper, grapeseed oil, mayonnaise, and vinegar in a small bowl, then whisked until combined. I didn't measure the ingredients, so that's the best that I can do for a recipe. The vinegar that I used is a little different. The flavor is D'Anjou Pear. I bought it when I visited Truro Vineyards on the Cape. You can read about that here.

The dressing is really good and I think that I'm going to make my own salad dressing from now on. For the salad, it was all escarole for the greens. This was one big leap of faith! I added some chicken and Asiago cheese, then topped with the dressing. It was great! Escarole has a very mild flavor and is less bitter than most salad greens that I've tasted. I'm not one to get excited about salad, but I did have fun with this one.