Green Goddess and a really good salad

2 anchovy fillets or 2tsp anchovy paste
2 small cloves of garlic, peeled
2 scallions, including white and 3 inches of green, trimmed and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
2tbsp fresh flat leaf parsley
1tbsp fresh cilantro (or 1tsp dried)
1tbsp fresh dill (or 1 tsp dried)
1tbsp fresh tarragon (or 1 tsp dried)
1tsp sugar
1tsp salt
2tbsp tarragon vinegar or white wine vinegar
3/4 cup sour cream ( I used thick Greek style yogurt instead)
1/2 cup mayonnaise
Freshly ground black pepper

Place all ingredients except the sour cream, mayo and pepper into a food processor or blender. Pulse until finely chopped, stopping once or twice to scrape the sides of the bowl.
Add the sour cream and mayo and run the machine till the dressing is smooth. Season with pepper to taste, running the machine to combine.
Transfer to a clean container and refrigerate for at least 6 hours (can last up to a week)

This is from the book Food to Live By and it can be eaten as a dip, or thinned out and used as a dressing. I tried both and they were both wonderful. It has such a fresh and summery taste with all those herbs, and the smell was lovely too. I only switched up the sour cream for yogurt because it was what I had in the house.

This is just a perfect, summer-day-sitting-in-the-yard-with-friends food.

Here’s the salad I made with it…



The other day I had a similar salad at a café, and I wanted to recreate it. The original salad had blue cheese dressing instead of the green goddess, and regular onions, instead of red. Also the cheese guy was out of Stilton, so he gave us another cheese that was very similar, but orange colored)

Here’s what I used to make three huge dinner salads:

1 yellow pepper cut into rings and grilled
1/2 red onion cut into rings and grilled
4 slices of bacon, cooked (that’s British bacon, use more if you are using American)
Stilton(-ish) cheese
A few handfuls of walnuts, toasted
Left over green goddess dressing (I recommend blue cheese if you are not making green goddess)
Mixed salad greens

I used a griddle pan to grill the onion and pepper. I didn’t turn them over and it took somewhere between five and ten minutes to get them to go black on the bottom (which is what I wanted).

All I will say about this salad is that the combination of stilton, bacon and walnuts is not to be missed!