Salads

A salad is a structure rather than an ingredient list: something with bulk, something crisp, something rich, something sharp, and a dressing tying them together. Once you see it that way, most of what is in this category becomes swappable.

Dressing is where salads are usually lost. Three parts oil to one part acid is the starting ratio, but taste it on a leaf rather than off a spoon, because neat vinaigrette always reads too sour. Emulsify it with a little mustard or honey so it clings instead of pooling at the bottom of the bowl. Dress leaves at the last possible moment and use less than you think. Grains, beans and roasted vegetables are the opposite: dress them while still warm, when they absorb rather than shed.

Salt the components, not just the finished bowl. Tomatoes salted ten minutes ahead taste of tomato. Cucumbers salted and drained stop watering down everything around them.

For a salad that works as a meal, add something warm and something fatty — roasted squash and feta, a jammy egg, toasted nuts, a piece of grilled fish. The green side salads here are doing a different job entirely: they sit next to a rich main and cut through it.