Changing up the Salad Dressings

My mother visited recently from Montreal, and shared the recipes for her two favorite salad dressings with me.

She keeps them in old Worcestershire sauce bottles in the door of her fridge. She measures the white wine vinegar and olive oil by eye, pouring the wine vinegar to 1/3 full and the oil to the neck of the bottle. I’ve converted the measurements into tablespoons for those of us who do not have old Worcestershire sauce bottles.

These dressings will store indefinitely in the fridge, but the olive oil will solidify. Let the dressing stand at room temperature a few minutes before shaking it up to meld the ingredients.

The umeboshi plum vinegar adds a salty sharpness to the dressing. You can find the Eden Foods brand at your local independent health food store.

Roasted Sesame Dressing
1/4 tsp dry mustard
2 tbsp umeboshi plum vinegar
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
3 tbsp toasted sesame oil
9 tbsp olive oil or mixture of olive oil and canola oil

Put the dry mustard in a small bottle. Add umeboshi vinegar and shake well. Add balsamic vinegar and shake some more. Add white wine vinegar, keep shaking. Add sesame oil and olive oil. Shake one last time.

When she uses this vinaigrette, she toasts a handful of pine nuts in her cast iron frypan while she assembles the salad, and tosses them in with the greens.


Walnut Oil Vinaigrette
1/4 tsp dry mustard
2 tbsp umeboshi plum vinegar
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
3 tbsp walnut oil
9 tbsp olive oil or mixture of olive oil and canola oil

Put the dry mustard in a small bottle. Add umeboshi vinegar and shake well. Add balsamic vinegar and shake some more. Add white wine vinegar, shake again. Add sesame oil and olive oil. Shake well.

When she uses this vinaigrette, she toasts a handful of walnuts in her cast iron frypan while she assembles the salad, and tosses them in. I recently used this dressing on a salad of buttercrunch and romaine lettuce, avocado, spring onions, radishes, walnuts, and some diced Cotswold Double Gloucester cheese with onion and chives from Trader Joe's. That was a great lunch.

These dressings are good on salads, steamed vegetables, broccoli and asparagus.

Mum offered a third variation as well:

Basic French Dressing
Use paprika instead of mustard, and use canola or olive oil instead of the sesame or walnut oil.