How to: mix the best salad dressings

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Dress summer salads fresh from the garden in something new. 

We asked three of our favourite cooks to share their best-ever dressing.

Lemon and mustard dressing

This is such a delicious dressing my daughter likes to drizzle more into the bottom of the salad bowl when all the vegetables are gone, and sop it up with bread. You can deepen the flavour by adding a splash of chardonnay.

- quarter cup of fresh lemon juice

- third cup extra virgin olive oil

- 1 tablespoon of honey

- 1 tablespoon smooth Dijon mustard

Put all ingredients in a screw top jar and shake well to combine. Taste and adjust balance to suit. Use on green leaf salads, tomato, mozzarella and basil stacks, and bowls of zucchini and carrot, peeled into thin strips.

 

Vincotto vinaigrette

Vincotto means 'cooked wine' and it’s a dark, sweet, dense grape must made by the reduction over many hours. It has a sweet flavour, and though it is not a vinegar it can be used in the same way as a good mellow balsamic. We love it paired with duck, roasted root vegetables, figs and the nightly salad.

Mix 3 parts olive oil 1 part vincotto (we like Maggie Beer’s version), then season with salt and pepper.

 

Mint and Fennel Dressing

Stacey Georgeu, presenter at the Seasonal Cooking Days at Glenmore House

This, from Greg Malouf’s ‘Saha’, is one of my favourite dressings. I love it with green leaves, avocado, grated carrot and beetroot and some toasted or sesame seeds or crisp pepitas.

- 2 cloves garlic, crushed with salt inot a paste

- 2 lemons, juice

- 100 ml water

- 1 teaspoon honey

- 250 ml extra virgin olive oil

- 1 tablespoon dried mint

- 1 teaspoon fennel seeds, roasted and ground

- grind of pepper

Whisk the garlic paste, lemon juice, water and honey together in a

small bowl, then stir in all the other ingredients. Taste and add salt or pepper if needed. Pour into a jar. It makes about 400ml and it will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks.

 

 

Compiled by: Robin Powell

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