Tarbes Salad
Tarbes salad is a sweet and sour salad that is both tasty and easy to make.
Total Time
20 minutes
Servings
2–4
1 white or yellow onion
1 tablespoon olive oil
½ head your favorite lettuce
About 5 walnuts, broken into bits
1 ripe orange, cut into small pieces
Small chunk of hard blue or Roquefort cheese, diced
50 ml extra-virgin olive oil
25 ml balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon whole grain mustard
1 squirt of lemon juice
Salt
Pepper to taste
Cut the onion into half moons and brown it in a bit of olive oil. Make it nice and crispy. Once it's done, put it aside in a bowl and squirt a bit of lemon juice on it.
As the onion is cooking, wash the lettuce thoroughly. Soak it several times. Nothing is worse than gritty lettuce in a salad. Break the lettuce into bite-size pieces and drop them in your spinner under running water. Once it's washed, spin it until it's dry. Wet lettuce will dilute the dressing.
Once the lettuce is dry, put it in a bowl. Add the onions, walnuts, orange and cheese.
To make the dressing, just mix the ingredients in a jar and give them a good shake.
Toss everything together in a big bowl and serve.
- •Prepare the lettuce and onions early. Add the onions to the lettuce (once they've cooled down) and cover the bowl. This will allow the onions to flavor the lettuce.
- •Put a bit of beer in with the onions as you brown them, or even white wine or vermouth.
- •Add some minced garlic either to the dressing or to the onions.
- •Use a ripe pear or a kiwi instead of the orange.
- •Add a sliced up, deeply browned zucchini in addition to or instead of onion.
- •If you're in a hurry, skip the onion/zucchini.
- •Try browning the walnuts with the onions in olive oil.
- •Turn the salad into dinner by adding strips of chicken or turkey (heavily salted and peppered, browned in butter).
- •Double the dressing ingredients and save yourself the trouble the next day. Also, you can wash and break up all of your lettuce at once and store it in an airtight bag in the crisper drawer of your refrigerator.