Saturday, June 8, 2013

vinaigrette

This is embarrassing.

I was just turned onto a fantastic new (to me) salad dressing: cilantro-lime vinaigrette. On Facebook, I guess it was.

When I started searching the net for this item, I quickly found 10 so-called "cilantro-lime vinaigrette" recipes and every one of them is slightly different.

But that's not what was a little embarrassing.

I found one at Epicurious, and it was dated the year 2000! Hey, that's 13 years ago. Where the fuck have I been?

We followed the recipe at Epicurious because it had my preferred method of preparation:

"stir ingredients together"

Don't need a blender or food processor. Just a knife, a bowl, and a spoon. Maybe a whisk instead of a spoon.

We put this dressing onto a salad Friday evening and I have to say that it is probably the best salad dressing I have EVER tasted! Argh! And we could have been eating it for the last 13 years!! And found all sorts of wonderful derivatives by now!

Oh well. Better late than never, eh?

Cilantro-Lime Vinaigrette

Gourmet | September 2000

user rating

95% would make it again

user rating:
Cilantro-Lime Vinaigrette4 forks

at a glance

main ingredientsLime, Citrus, Cilantro, Herb

typeQuick & Easy, Salad Dressing

dietary considerationsVegetarian, Vegan

appears in this menuQuick Mexican Dinner: Nov '00

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Use with sweet and buttery lettuces such as Boston and Bibb.

ingredients

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon ground coriander
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro

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preparation

Stir all ingredients together.

I think the one ingredient that absolutely put this dressing over the top on the taste-o-meter was the fact that we crushed our own homegrown cilantro seeds (aka coriander) in a mortar and pestle. We let last year's cilantro crop go to seed and collected hundreds of the small brown round seeds the plant produced. So simple. So tasty.

The freshly-ground coriander must have been it, because none of the other ingredients, in and of themselves, could account for such an outstandingly different taste. Wow.

So the next time you grow cilantro, let that plant go to seed and save those golden suckers.

And which other herbs can you let go to seed??