Forget iceberg lettuce and Italian dressing. From seaweed to candied beets to smoked eggplant, these days chefs are getting increasingly creative with your first course.
Once upon a time, it was all so simple. If you wanted a salad, you’d take some lettuce, slice up some cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes, and bell peppers, splash on some dressing, and presto! Fie on those who called it “bunny food.” It was nutrition on a plate. But your palate has evolved — and, thankfully, so have the salads you can get to please it.
There’s an old adage that goes, “It takes four men to dress a salad: a wise man for the salt, a madman for the pepper, a miser for the vinegar, and a spendthrift for the oil.” The insightful sage who made that remark would probably think it takes a village to dress a salad, or at least a team as big as the makeup squad backstage at a Marc Jacobs show. On most menus these days, a plate of simple greens is practically an insult, relegated to the realm of the side dish. “Salad” has become a term of prestige, a vehicle with which chefs can bend boundaries and demonstrate their creativity, combining vegetables in neverbeforeconsidered combinations. If you think that sounds like an overstatement, try some of these manipulations of Mother Nature’s finest.
Don’t stop the beet
We did a double take when it arrived. The composition, a squat column of neatly stacked shimmery vermillion cubes, looked like tartare. Who knew earthy root vegetables could do such a spot-on impersonation of raw seafood? The beet salad ($10) at the swish, downtempo Lobby Bar & Kitchen (131 Broad Street, Boston, 617.261.5353) is a trick on the eyes and a trip for the taste buds. Three different styles of beets are involved, but by far the most elaborately prepared are those of the candied variety, which are prepped with white wine, salt, and pepper, steamed, then dryroasted and cubed. Playing the role of mortar, pepperrubbed goat cheese holds the tower together; the whole thing is finished with a Champagne vinaigrette, like a coda that coaxes out the undertones of white wine — riesling, to be exact — in which the veggies were first doused. Disassembling the tower yields a medley of bitter, sweet, acidic, and sharp flavors. “People think you have to have greens to make it a salad,” says executive chef Donley Liburd. “But that’s not the case.”
Heat (then cool) and eat
As Morocco goes, so goes Tangierino (83 Main Street, Charlestown, 617.242.6009). “At lunchtime, everyone gets together and everyone eats off of one big plate, but before anyone brings a plate to you, they bring salad. That’s something you don’t share,” explains general manager Kal Boukhatem, reminiscing on his childhood in Meknes, Morocco. But “salad” in the North African nation means something different than it does in the west. “We don’t use a lot of greens back home,” Boukhatem says. “There are a lot of warm salads, like spinach cooked with spices, then kept in the fridge and served cold.” In the sultry Casbahesque ambience of this dimlylit dining sanctum (which is presently undergoing renovations), it seems only fitting to preface dinner with zalook ($8) — a chilled, slightly piquant ratatouillelike blend of smoked eggplant, kalamata olives, and spices. But the menu features salads for the Western traditionalist, too. Sort of. “We’re big on phyllo dough,” says Boukhatem as we tuck into the Mendoubia salad ($11), a plate of baby spinach drizzled with aged balsamic vinaigrette and sprinkled with shaved parmesan, toasted pine nuts, and pieces of goat cheese wrapped in flaky phyllo.
Multiple choice
Light roast or dark? Bubbly or still? Soup or salad? Such are the common questions in the restaurant world. And Joanne Chang, owner of Flour Bakery + Café (12 Farnsworth Street, Boston, 617.338.4333; 1595 Washington Street, Boston, 617.267.4300), poses yet another one: salad or sandwich? Call it the modular menu: the contents of eight of the 10 sandwiches on the menu at both outposts of this bright and bustling eatery can be liberated from the constraints of bread and rest on a heap of organic greens. Chang opened the South End Flour “in the midst of the whole Atkins thing,” she says. “People were asking for salads with chicken and this and that, so it just made sense to offer the meats and spreads and veggies on a bed of greens instead.” A generous scoop of curried tuna salad ($7.25) laced with bits of sweet apples, carrots, and golden raisins makes a good showing when presented on a pile of greens, while neatly arranged slices of roasted chicken ($7.25) marinated in achiote paste, avocado chipotle spread, and jicama offer a hearty medley of flavors and textures — spicy, velvety, crisp — and play well together in a garden setting.
Up in smoke
Stephen Sherman, chef de cuisine a Union Bar and Grille (1357 Washington Street, Boston, 617.423.0555), took a basic spinach salad ($9), gussied it up with a few accoutrements — smoked shitake mushrooms, spring onions, crispy beet chips — and included it on the prixfixe menu offered during Restaurant Week last winter. He got such overwhelming feedback that he made it a fixture. Though the pile of billowing deep greens studded with mushroom caps appears unassuming, it has a surprisingly deep, earthy snap and a justslightlysweet honeysesame vinaigrette dressing. It comes on gently and elegantly, but it’s actually brawny; this is the stuff that could seduce a hardcore carnivore over to the dark (green) side. Someone like, say, Tim Connors, an affable Union bartender. “I’m a meatandpotatoes kind of guy,” Connors says. “That was all garnish material to me until I tried it. Now I love it. There’s a real depth of flavor you don’t expect.”
Ursalads
Grezzo (69 Prince Street, Boston, 857.362.7288), an intimate, perpetually packed restaurant in the North End, looks like your standard Italian trattoria. But looks can be deceiving. The word here is “raw” — as in, no food item is heated over 112 degrees, and everything is organic and vegan. In the lingua franca of raw foodistry, “salad” almost seems an adjective. The spring vegetable lasagna ($22) is nothing short of salady, what with all sorts of vegetables pickled and otherwise enhanced, layered with intriguing nutbased Béchamel “cheese” and an almost weightless housemade pomodoro sauce. But that’s not to say the concept is so radical as to disavow the notion of salad. In fact, you can order a house salad ($11) here; says executive chef Leah Dubois, “We take classic components and mess with them. The goal is to make it the best salad anyone ever had. Achieving that goal is constantly evolving.” Such “messing” could involve marinating (a spectrum of radishes), pickling (the cauliflower), or soaking until sprouting occurs (garbanzo beans). Also pushing serious boundaries is the seaweed salad ($13). A far cry from the glistening yet oddly gummy emerald filaments you’ll find at your corner sushi stop, this composition is a quartet of seaweed varieties — kelp, dulse (which arrives airdried and is rehydrated with the use of mushroom tea), nori, and sea beans, which look like anorexic twigs of asparagus and have a briny zing. Finished with Japanese horseradish vinaigrette, the end result is salty, spicy, nourishing and — oh yeah — healthy.
It’s Greek to him
Michael Leviton, the executive chef at Persephone (283 Summer Street, Boston, 617.695.2257), paid a visit to Greece about a year ago. Anything that came off the grill there — with just a hint of lemon and olive oil — was “it,” he says. Hoping to import that it factor back home, Leviton devised the grilled local squid salad ($14), which ultimately became a dish with a Moroccan edge, with the incorporation of finely chopped Moroccan olives, chickpeas, and preserved threads of lemon rinds, which soak for about two weeks in lemon juice and salt. Our gut reaction to Leviton’s creation was gratitude, as grilled squid is a welcome freshtasting reprieve from the ubiquitous fried preparations. Our second reaction was pleasant astonishment, as the pile of greens upon which all else sits is a small patch of curly parsley. “To me it’s just green — and bright,” says Leviton. “You get a vibrancy you don’t get from salad greens.”
DIY (sort of)
Much as we appreciate the arts of sautéing, steaming, and grilling, there’s something more inherently satisfying about food that goes crunch. “I think it’s all about the crunch,” contends Kathy Sidell Trustman, owner of the Metropolitan Club (1210 Boylston Street, Chestnut Hill, 617.731.0600). Diners here not only get said crunch,
they make it work for them, with the menu offeringvarious base salads upon which to build. Kate’s Salad ($16/full; $12/half; $14/lunch) is a bowl about the diameter of a record album containing heroic proportions of lettuce and garden veggies and an oilless cilantromustard dressing, while the LA Chopped Salad ($12) is a layered sculpture of dark lettuce, avocado, blue cheese, shredded hardboiled egg whites, and bacon layered architecturally in a ring mold. Next pick a protein (prices vary). For the finishing touch, choose from a selection of crunches to be sprinkled on top: phyllo hay, shrimp chips, wasabi peas, fried noodles, and the signature mix of seeds and nuts dubbed the “Met Crunch.” “People want salads they can craft,” said Trustman. “People like to personalize dishes with ingredients they like. We provide the canvas on which people can create their own palate.”
Extreme DIY
This is it: the day of reckoning. The salad bar ($7.99/pound) at the Charles River Plaza Whole Foods (181 Cambridge Street, Boston, 617.723.0004) is either a diner’s ShangriLa or his worst nightmare. There are no shades of gray when you confront theendless selection of raw, roasted, sautéed, spiced, mashed, and marinated options. On a recent visit, a young woman had her awestruck boyfriend by the arm as she pointed at various bins and breathlessly cooed — tortellini salad! Chipotle lime tofu! Chicken Provençal! — with all the exhilaration of a firsttime visitor to Paris. Choose wisely, or you’ll end up with Szechuan eggplant swimming in a stew of guacamole and fresh salsa. Diversity is one thing, but what holds on the playground does not apply to the plate. “Adding
proteins changed the definition of ‘salad’ about 10 or 12 years ago,” says Michael Weber, prepared foods regional manager for Whole Foods. “By adding international elements, it becomes even harder to define.” And even harder to decide. Weber recommends devising a strategy for negotiating the “visual barrage” before you even pick up the tongs.
Green buildings
Housed in a building that once was a bank, Mantra (52 Temple Place, Boston, 617.542.8111) has high ceilings. In the evening, a substantial segment of its female clientele wears high heels or boots. There are Buddhist statues that wink at you from on high. So it’s little surprise that the chefs here take salads to new heights — literally. Witness the Parmesan Ring ($14). It’s spun around a hollow column formed from pure baked parmesan cheese. And is that saffron we’re picking up on? And coriander? The cheese undergoes rigorous treatment — three days’ worth of beating, rolling, and pressing before it’s baked, according to general manager Demetri Tsolakis. Mesclun greens fill the column, which is stationed on a plate adorned with a lattice of drizzled balsamic vinaigrette and redbellpepper mayo. A highmaintenance salad — how fitting.
My heroes have always been cowboys
By now you’re thinking, Enough! You’ve had it with the newfangled, avant-garde concepts. You want good ol’fashioned salad simplicity. We don’t know about you, but we’ve always had notsosecret fantasies of a cowboy galloping in to sweep us away from the madness of this modern, highconcept world and carry us back to the basics. And of all places, we found him — or rather, it — at an Irish pub. Out of the newly added kitchen at J.J.
Foley’s (117 East Berkeley Street, Boston, 617.728.0315) comes the Cowboy Cobb ($11). It’s just hearty chunks of steak, fresh corn, sweet potatoes, onions, cucumber, and greens languishing in a tangy buttermilk dressing. Its nofuss freshness suits the workaday folks and neighborhood hipsters who call this vintage watering hole home on the range.
