Only recently did I hear about this newfangled kind of salad called a “chopped salad”. My sister-in-law (well, ex-sister-in-law, but she lives with my mom so who’s keeping track and I love cooking with her and respect many of her culinary opinions) brought me some from her second job and I loved it and I usually don’t much like salads. I thought at first that it was just the name of the salad, but Jill expained to me that it was more the method — everything was chopped up and you ended up eating more vegetables than you would with a big fluffy girly salad. It made sense.
More recently I looked up “chopped salad recipe” and found many recipes, but Wikipedia redirects it to “Cobb Salad”.
So the other day I took a head of romaine, some radishes, part of a cucumber, part of an onion, part of an avocado, a few grape tomatoes and chopped the hell out of them. I added some ready-made dressing and served it to Dean for dinner (with something else of course — he’s a guy after all). We both loved it.
Thinking about it, though, this is not new. My mom made chopped salad when I was a kid except she used iceberg lettuce. Years later, I remember scolding her for cutting the vegetables too small when she was making a salad in my kitchen.
Strange how things come back around. We even have a restaurant in the area called Chop’t that specializes in chopped salad. It’s good. I’ve been there but didn’t put it together until I searched for chopped salad on good old Google and Chop’t was the first link.
So now, instead of serving fancy baby lettuce / spinach greens with walnuts, cranberries and goat cheese with a vinaigrette dressing I just chop up a bunch of vegetables and actually enjoy what I am eating.
Dona, I have a great chopped salad recipe. It has red cabbage, ditalini pasta, gorgonzola cheese, bacon, romaine and iceburg lettuce, green onions and diced tomatoes. It is very good with a balsamic vinegar, garlic, sugar, oregano, salt and pepper dressing. Let me know if you want the recipe, it is excellent.
LikeLike
Yes! Send me the recipe!
LikeLike
It’s interesting how texture can make such a difference to people!
LikeLike
Yes, some more than others, IB.
LikeLike
I thought I was the only person with two x chromosomes who didn’t adore all salads all the time. I’m glad I’m not alone. I’ll try chopping, too.
LikeLike
Yeah, Lali, I just don’t really see the appeal. They normally take too long to eat, too much chewing for any satisfaction and just don’t taste all that good to me.
LikeLike