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!

Some Dip

Creamy Avocado Dip
2 anchovies, or 2 tsp anchovy paste
2 scallions, including white and three inches of green, trimmed or coarsely chopped
1 small clove garlic, peeled
1tbsp fresh tarragon leaves
2 tbsp coarsely chopped fresh chives
2 tbsp fresh flat leaf parsley leaves
1/2 tsp grated lemon zest
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1tbsp tarragon vinegar, or white wine vinegar
1 small ripe avocado, preferably Hass, peeled, pitted, and coarsely chopped
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper

Place the anchovies, scallions, garlic, tarragon, chives and parsley in a food processor or blender. Pulse until finely chopped, stopping once or twice to scrape down the sides with a rubber spatula.
Add the lemon zest, lemon juice, vinegar, and avocado, and blend till smooth.
Add the mayonnaise and sour cream and pulse to combine. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Can be refrigerated covered for up to three days.


Edamame Hummus
About 1 cup shelled fresh or frozen (unthawed) edamame (soybeans)
2 large cloves of garlic, peeled
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup fresh flat leaf parsley
3/4 cup canned chickpeas (garbanzo beans) drained
1/4 cup plain yogurt
2tbso tahini
3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
pinch of cayenne pepper
1 tsp ground cumin, or 1 tsp whole cumin seeds, toasted and ground
Bring a pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the edamame and cook until tender, 4 to 5 min. Drain and set aside to cool.
Place the garlic, salt, and parsley in a food processor, and pulse the machine until they are finely chopped.
Add the edamame and chickpeas and pulse 5 or 6 times until they are coarsely chopped. Add the yogurt, tahini, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, cumin, and 1/2 cup water and process until the hummus is smooth. Can be refrigerated, covered for up to 1 week.

I made these and I also made Green Goddess , which I have made before. They are all equally easy to make, and they are all fromFood to Live By. If you have a food processor, there is really no reason to buy dip, you are really only saving yourself 5 minutes, and the store bought will never taste fresh like homemade does. Also dip usually improves overnight (in my opinion), so it can easily be made the day before, and taken out of the fridge all cold and fresh on the day of.

After having made all three of these, I have to say that the Green Goddess was by far, no competition, the absolute best. From now on it is the dip I will always make for any dip making occasion. Also, if there are left-overs, they can be thinned out and used as a salad dressing. It rocks!

How to make Mayonnaise

Delicious homemade mayonnaise

By Cookbad

Just testing out the recipe we are using in the upcoming Fresh Eggs Don't Float book.

And hooray! It's good.

Makes about 2 cups:
4 egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon of dijon mustard or 1/4 teaspoon of dry mustard
1.5 cups of virgin olive oil or canola oil
Juice of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon of white wine vinegar
salt, pepper

You can make it in a blender, with a hand mixer or a standing mixer. You can make it by hand if you think your arm will hold out.

It's good to have all these ingredients as well as the bowl and whisk at room temperature, but I didn't and it worked out just fine.

Whisk the egg yolks and mustard until they are pale yellow. Put your oil into something that will allow you to pour it very slowly. While the egg yolks are being beaten slowly pour 1/2 teaspoon on oil into the yolk. When if has emulsified add another 1/2 teaspoon and so on. Towards the end, you can start to pour in the oil a bit faster, but if you incorporate it too quickly, the mayonnaise will break. Add salt, pepper, the juice of 1 lemon and 1/2 -1 teaspoon of white wine vinegar.

All told it took me about 30 minutes to make. I wouldn't have had that sort of patience or stamina if I wasn't using the standing mixer.

From mayonnaise you can make all sorts of sauces and spreads:

Aioli
Andalouse
Bacon Mayonnaise
Blue Cheese Dressing
Cambridge Sauce
Chantilly Mayonnaise
Gloucester Sauce
Green Goddess Dressing
Gribiche
Curry Mayonnaise
Remoulade
Rouille
Sauce Vert
Tartare Sauce
Thousand Island Dressing
Sauce Vincent

If you want very quick recipes for each of these sauces, click onto the mayonnaise family tree chart, find you sauce and add on to mayonnaise whatever ingredients are called for. Here is the chart. Click on it to see a much LARGER version:

double click for a bigger verison

All the chart recipes are the ingredients listed + 1 cup of mayonnaise

Joy of Cooking says that you cannot make mayonnaise in a thunderstorm, because it will not bind. I am so looking forward to testing that theory out.

Let me know if that chart is weird or hard to understand or just plain wrong.