Every dish is only as good as the ingredients that go into it. The adage is especially true when it comes to raw summer meals that can’t rely on the magic of heat chemistry to meld or concentrate their flavors.
Recipes like this one demand high-quality, fresh-from-the-garden ingredients. Choose sweet, crisp, and juicy lettuce or bright green, peppery arugula. Seek out a block of feta packaged with its brine and fine olive oil with no acrid notes. Use new, crisp walnuts: old ones get soft and may have a slightly bitter or metallic aftertaste. If you buy nothing else at the farmers’ market, go there for tomatoes, which turn out dry, mealy, and bland when they are picked too early for transport to distant grocery stores.
The simplest recipes are also those that require cooks to treat their ingredients with the most respect. Greens that have not been gently yet thoroughly dried will wilt and become soggy. Basil that has been chopped with a dull-bladed knife quickly turns brown and unappetizing. Almost anything that has been left sitting in the fridge for long loses its punch and dries out.
When prepared with care, a summer salad like this packs enough flavor to steal the meal. Turn it into a main dish by adding seared shrimp, chunks of salmon, or layering a fried egg on top and serving with a thick hunk of good bread.
Tomato, Feta, and Walnut Salad with Lemon-Basil Vinaigrette
(Serves 4-6)
Greens of any sort (leaf lettuce, romaine, arugula, spinach, mesclun, etc.), thoroughly washed and dried
¼ cup very thinly sliced red onion
1 pint cherry tomatoes (red or yellow), cut in half
½ cup feta cheese (preferably packaged with its brine), crumbled
½ cup walnut halves, roughly chopped
Lemon-Basil Vinaigrette
¼ cup fresh basil, roughly chopped with a sharp knife
¼ cup fine olive oil
Zest of ½ lemon
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp. grainy Dijon mustard
¼ tsp. kosher salt
Few grinds of black pepper
1. First, make the dressing: Mix the basil, olive oil, lemon zest and juice, mustard, salt, and pepper in the bowl of a food processor and puree until smooth. Taste and adjust seasonings as desired.
2. Wash and dry as many greens as you and your guests will eat. (Green salads don’t keep well in the fridge.) Just before serving, toss them with dressing in a large bowl.
3. For a casual meal, simply add the remaining ingredients (onion, tomatoes, feta, and walnuts) to the bowl and toss everything together. For a more formal presentation, portion dressed greens onto individual plates and top them with onion, tomatoes, feta, and walnuts just before serving.
