Thread: The **** You Foodbanter Salad

I made a great salad for a dinner I attended yesterday,
and I should document what I did before I forget it.
I'd never made a salad like this one before, and it
turned out perfectly on a first attempt. I seldom
have such success without learning from prior failures.

RECIPE: The **** You Foodbanter Salad
Copyright 2010 Mark Thorson
The following is proprietary, trade secret information.
If you are not authorized to receive it, stop reading it
now and delete it from your system.

Unless superseded by another agreement, making this
information available on a website acknowledges acceptance
of the licensing terms, which require a payment of
U.S. $1 per viewing (i.e. hit), with a minimum pre-payment
for 10,000 viewings. Use of this intellectual property
without pre-payment is forbidden and doubles the minimum
pre-payment for every calendar day of non-compliant usage.

INGREDIENTS:

2 cans whole kernel corn (I used Trader Joe's, but any brand will do)
2 cans garbanzo beans (I used S&W, but any brand will do)
1 can whole olives (I used Lindsay, but there are better brands)
1 jar Trader Joe's Roasted Piquillo Peppers)
1 4-oz. jar Mezzetta Non-Pariel Capers
4 large shallots

(by "can" I am referring to the size which is
nominally about 15.5 oz undrained weight)

PROCEDURE:

Open the can of olives and drain. Refill with
fresh water. Do this two more times, spaced
half an hour apart to reduce the saltiness
of the olives. This might be an unnecessary step.
I always do this with canned olives.

Open the cans of corn and drain. Put into a
salad spinner and get rid of the rest of the
packing liquid. Return the corn to the cans
(or other temporary holding container).

Open the cans of garbanzo beans and drain.
Put into a salad spinner and rinse with water.
Drain and spin to remove excess water. Rinse
one more time with fresh water, drain, and spin.
Return the beans to the cans (or other temporary
holding container).

Open the jar of peppers and dump into the
salad spinner. Arrange the peppers symmetrically
in the basket of the salad spinner. Transfer
the liquid which drains to a bowl or other
container, then spin. Transfer the liquid which
comes off to the bowl, rearrange the peppers,
and spin again. Transfer the liquid to the bowl.
The liquid in which the peppers are packed is
sweet and has pepper flavor, being mostly liquid
released by the peppers. This will be used later
in the salad dressing. Coarsely mince the peppers
and transfer to a temporary holding container.

Peel and mince the shallots. If you can't get
the big Canadian shallots, use more of the little
ones. I cut the shallots into slices and mince
by crumbling between fingers like you might do with
bacon. I don't do it the way they do on cooking shows,
in which the root end is kept intact to hold it
together while mincing in three dimensions.
I slice in one dimension, then crumble. But either
method will work just fine. Place in a temporary
container.

Drain the olives and cut each one into four slices.
Return the olives to the can (or other temporary
holding container).

Now, you are ready for final assembly. I have the
small version of the OXO salad spinner, and it's
bowl (with the basket removed, of course) is just
barely large enough for this salad. The larger size
would be better.

Combine the olives, corn, beans, and shallots in
the bowl. Open the jar of capers and dump all
of the contents into the bowl. The packing vinegar
of the shallots is the main ingredient of the dressing.
Add the reserved liquid from the peppers. Using your
hands, gently mix all the ingredients to ensure
thorough contact with the liquids. Set aside for
one hour, then mix again. At this point, it can be
served, however it can be held for several hours at
room temperature. There is no meat, cheese, or egg,
so there is little danger of food poisoning by
holding at room temperature. If you don't want to
hold for an hour to allow the flavors to meld, that's
okay for this salad. I didn't detect a lot of
difference between fresh and melded flavor.

The flavors and textures were all a perfect
combination. I don't see any room for improvement.
I thought about replacing one can of garbanzo beans
with a can of kidney beans, but I think that would
make the flavor and texture a wee bit too complex.
It would be nice to line a bowl with spinach leaves,
and serve over that, but the logistics dictated
a simpler presentation. The transparent bowl
of the salad spinner nicely presented the yellow
of the corn and beans, red of the peppers, and
near-black of the capers and olives. The quantity
of liquid from the jars of peppers and capers was
just the right amount to coat the solids.

If I do make one change, it would be to add
pine nuts to introduce a somewhat crunchy note to
the texture and make it a little richer. Note that
there is no oil in the dressing, so the oilness
of the pine nuts is likely to be an improvement.
Chopped walnuts and slivered almonds are other
possibilities, but I'm leaning toward pine nuts
because they are about the right size and an
attractive shape in the context of the other
ingredients.