Preparing fruit and vegetables for salads

 

Preparing fruit and vegetables for salads and vinaigrettes. The flavour and appearance of the finished dish largely depend on how the products are prepared.

Green salad. Select healthy salad leaves and rinse thoroughly in cold water, changing the water 2-3 times. Then put the lettuce on a sieve to drain off the water, and before cooking dry it on a napkin Salad celery. Having removed the roots, cut out the darkened parts of the stems with a knife and, keeping 1-2 hours in cold water, rinse the celery 2 times in clean water. Parsley greens. It is washed in water. Parsley sprigs are used to decorate salads.

Fresh cucumbers. Washed, bitter cucumbers are peeled, cut into slices, slices or cubes. Cucumbers from heaters or parks usually do not have their peels cut off.

Pickled cucumbers. Cut into slices, large ones are peeled. 

Tomatoes. For the salad select ripe, large tomatoes, washed with cold water and cut into slices. If you need to cook tomatoes without peeling, they are dropped into boiling water for 1 minute and then peeled off.

Onions and green onions. Large sweet onions are most suitable for the salad. Peel them, cut them into skinny slices and then cut them into rings. To remove excessive bitterness, the sliced onions are sprinkled with vinegar.

Green onions, peeled and washed with cold water, are cut into 3-4 cm pieces for salads, for vinaigrettes they are cut finer.

Apples and pears. Peel off the skin. If apples are cut into circles, the core with grains is first removed with a special notch. You can also first cut apples and pears into 4 parts, cut out the core, and then cut them into slices, slices or cubes.

Oranges and mandarins. Peel off the peel, cut it into slices or circles (without seeds). Zest (top layer) is thinly sliced off the peel and sprinkled over the salad.

Grapes, cherries, strawberries and other berries. Select healthy ripe berries, rinse in cold water, dry on a grid; remove pips from cherries and cherries.

Carrots, turnips. Peeled, washed and cooked (preferably in the broth intended for soup). Cooled vegetables cut into slices or small cubes (2 cm). Potatoes. Boil in peel. Cool, peel and slice, and cut into slices. Beetroot. Boiled or baked in the oven. After cooling, peel and slice.

Asparagus. Rinse, cut off the skin with a thin knife, then rinse again and cut into 3-4 cm long sticks. Boil in salted water, cool and store in broth.

Cauliflower. Cut into small spikes, cook and store in the same way as asparagus.

Bean and pea pods. Peel off the veins and wash, cut bean pods into 2-3 cm long pieces, and cut pea pods in half. Each type of pod is cooked separately in boiling salted water. After cooking, drain on a colander and cool.

Tinned vegetables. Peas, beans, cauliflower, carrots, beetroot, tomatoes and other tinned vegetables are very convenient for salads, as they do not require preliminary preparation and cooking. Before dressing the salad, the vegetables should be thrown on a sieve or colander to dry.

Cut fruits and vegetables just before serving to maintain freshness and avoid oxidation. If cut in advance, keep them refrigerated and covered.