The dual-purpose salad: Feed family, clean out the fridge

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These warm early fall days when we might rather be outside than cooking supper inside, are a good time for making a significant, filling salad. Here is how it works at our house. The object of the game is to clean out the fridge and make supper with what you find. The assortment of leftovers is a treasure because it can help you figure out what to do. And cheaply.

Two pieces of cooked potato, some leftover roast chicken, a handful of leftover cooked green beans, a bit of chili, a couple raw carrots, a few cherry tomatoes (the gift of a neighbor), the inevitable cucumber, half a head of broccoli, some leftover small pasta shells, plus the regular denizens of the fridge: pickles, lettuce, celery, eggs, cheese and olives. That is what I have to work with.

Now, the way I look at it, we aren’t going to want pasta and potato in the same dish. For some reason I can’t really explain, if it were cooked sweet potato, I’d feel differently about it, but maybe it wouldn’t bother you at all. And the chili goes back into the fridge.

So I size up the pasta and the potato: if there is enough pasta to build a salad on, I might go that route. If there is just a little bit, I have to toss a coin – pasta on the heads, potato on the tails.

Let’s see, tails it is: potato. If it had been heads, I’d have resolved mentally to have homefries for breakfast in the next day or to make a tiny potato salad. The pasta would lend itself to being mixed with chopped celery, a bit of grated carrot, a bit of grated or chopped cucumber and pickle, and then with a dressing either of mayonnaise or my favorite vinaigrette, it would be a little pasta salad to fill out one corner of the Significant Salad plate.

In fact, in this case, either the potato or the pasta qualify as what I call “White Stuff,” which includes rice, too. White stuff is the basis for all kinds of salads or, in cooler weather, casserole-like dishes with a multitude of vegetables, with or without meat, held together with a simple sauce – white or tomato.

A word or two on cheese. I figure if I have some kind of interesting and flavorful cheese on hand – a blue cheese such as gorgonzola, or nice salty, crumbly feta – or a comforting cheddar or cottage cheese, then I can make some kind of meal, even if we haven’t much meat. A good cheese adds a wonderful dimension to Significant Salads.

Your leftover chicken might be in slices. If it isn’t, consider making a chicken salad out of the smaller pieces with a bit of onion or celery in it to occupy another part of the salad plate.

All green things, such as broccoli, green beans, zucchini spears, asparagus, even cauliflower, benefit tremendously from being blanched – it really improves the flavor. All it takes is a minute in boiling water, fish them out, cool in cold water, and drain them on a towel.

So now we have potato, chicken, green beans, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, and miscellaneous. And lettuce. Looks good to me. What the balance of meat and vegetables is in this salad depends on your family. I plate a supper like this, so if someone at our table takes a dim view of broccoli or finds cucumbers disagree, then that person gets a bit more of the green beans and carrots instead. The gents in our house get more chicken.

If a big salad like this doesn’t cut it as a whole meal at your house, consider using it as the sole vegetable side dish with a piece of meat or fish. You’ll still get to use up all those pesky vegetable bits.

I am indebted to the Silver Palate Cookbook for this good, basic vinaigrette, which I adapted and keep on hand. Sometimes I vary it by using balsamic vinegar, or a flavored vinegar like raspberry. It can be the base for a blue cheese dressing; I just add some blue cheese to it and give it a whirl in the blender.

Send queries or answers to Sandy Oliver, 1061 Main Road, Islesboro 04848. E-mail: tastebuds@prexar.com.

Significant Salad to Clean Out the Fridge

Cold roasted chicken

Cold boiled potato

Blanched green beans, broccoli

Cherry tomatoes or very ripe tomatoes cut in wedges

Sliced cucumbers or cucumber pickles

Carrots cut in julienne or very thin slices

Large bowlful of washed and torn lettuce or mixed greens

Optional add-ons: feta cheese or blue cheese, diced celery, sliced scallions, pickled onions, olives.

Mayonnaise

Vinaigrette (recipe follows)

Cut the potato in small pieces, and, if you wish, add to it a bit of celery, scallion, or pickle, and dress with mayonnaise or vinaigrette. Set aside. Spread the lettuce on individual plates or on a large platter. Arrange the chicken, the potato salad and the vegetables over the lettuce, and garnish with the optional add-ons. Serve with vinaigrette or your favorite salad dressing on the side.

Vinaigrette

Makes one cup.

1 tablespoon prepared mustard (I like Maine’s Raye’s)

4 tablespoons of red wine or other vinegar

1 teaspoon of granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Parsley, garlic, chives (optional)

1/2 cup olive oil

Whisk in a bowl or blend in a blender the mustard, vinegar, sugar, salt and herbs until it is thoroughly blended. Then add the oil very slowly whisking or blending constantly until all the oil is added and you have a thick mixture, ready to use.