Salad Dressings

Steakhouse restaurants in the ’60s popularized blue cheese dressing over iceberg lettuce. To make a smooth dressing, use a blender, or whisk the dressing in a bowl so you get delicate chunks of cheese, which lend the mixture tangy interest. Serve this over wedges of iceberg lettuce, sprinkle it with crumbled bacon, and garnish with quartered cherry tomatoes.

A light herb dressing pairs nicely with spicy radishes and sweet peas — both in season right now — in this colorful, crunchy summer salad.

Drizzle this tangy dressing over green salads or steamed veggies.

This citrus salad requires only that you overcome the notion that salads must be green; it’s a novel and wonderful antidote to sorry-looking lettuce. If you’re lucky and can find blood oranges, use them; same with the odd, supremely delicious and usually quite pricey pomelos.

The idea is a combination of grapefruit (I like pink), oranges (navels, though common, are terrific) and tangerines or clementines: any citrus fruit that’s more sweet than sour.

Serve this dressing just as you would a traditional Caesar dressing and we bet no one will notice the difference.

Citrus dressing:

1/4 cup Champagne vinegar or white wine vinegar
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon fresh lime juice

Serve this fragrant, flavorful dressing with any green salad or toss with steamed veggies, if you like. It also makes a bold dipping sauce for spring rolls and dumplings.

Chef Amy Loveless uses frozen raspberries for chutney. In the summer, she makes it with black currants, blackberries, or blueberries. The chutney is a bit tart to balance the richness of the salmon. Start the wheat berries a day in advance.

Adapted from “The Working Cook,” by Tara Duggan (The San Francisco Chronicle, 2006)

It makes a great side dish, but this salad is even better as a pizza topping. Brush the pizza shell with olive oil, sprinkle it with sea salt and shredded mozzarella, then bake. When the pizza comes out of the oven, top it with the salad.