Still struggling to find the time and the ingredients to tackle anything major for The Cookbook Challenge; sadly, 30-Minute Meals doesn't have any delicious recipes consisting solely of half a carrot, two cups of brown rice, and a large lump of blue cheese. However, I have come across a very useful tip, that I have immediately made my own, for making your own salad dressing. In the past, to make vinaigrette I have always worked off a basic recipe of 2 Tbsp acid and 5 Tbsp of oil, which involved a lot of mental arithmetic (not one of my favorite leisure activities) if I wanted to reduce or increase the amount. In her recipe for basic vinaigrette, Rachael Ray suggests the following ratio:1 teaspoon of acid to every 1 tablespoon of oil
Ta da! Perfectly simple; easy to scale up or down; and no math.
Upon reflection, this is so blindingly obvious that I wouldn't be surprised if everyone else in the entire world knew about it besides me. The suggested ratio for making salad dressing is 1 part acid to 3 parts oil, which I knew; and 3 tsp = 1 Tbsp, which I also knew. I had just never put 2 and 2 together (or, in this case, 1 and 3). And in the event that you haven't either, I share this info with you, since it alone has made this whole exercise worthwhile for me--definitely the equivalent of learning a great new recipe.
4 comments:
That is a great tip! Anything that reduces the amount of mental math I'm required to do is a winner with me.
Yes, since I'm sure you have more than enough mental math to do with the temperature conversion, currency exchange, time difference....
Aaah, but over here in Oz (and also in the UK), a tablespoon is actually 4 teaspoons (20ml as opposed to the US 15ml - I have to mentally convert whenever I use American cookbooks!). :)
Celia - I forgot about that! Well, I guess you could use 7ml acid for every 20ml oil, but it's not as much of a no-brainer....
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