A Party of Cocktail Salads.
A Party of Cocktail Salads;
Make a Salad Shooter to-night.
The Canadian Open Skins Game which was played back in Ontario was a place that I got to cook in the famous Champions Tent for the pro golfers and their guests. It was a great position to prepare lavish buffets and get to show off your culinary prowess. Back then the liquor and tobacco companies would host several big name players and invite their customers to attend a privileged one on one meeting with a pro golfer while noshing and table hopping trying to catch a tip from the pro. The many food adorned grazing stations were to be kept at the optimum levels with lots of jumbo shrimp, fresh oysters, lobster, caviar, pate, cracked crab, smoked and poached salmon, prime rib of beef cut from the roast and hundreds of waiter served canapés of baked, fried, steamed or chilled appetizers with lots of mini salads.
The dessert table was in a zone all by itself. Slices and tasters of just about every kind of cake, tort, square, tart and mousse. Several varieties of bite size fruit, vegetables and cheeses filled in every available space in-between. The golfers had there own synopsis menus that they ate from during and after games.
Some golfers would ask me to get there luck bringing comfort foods like a hot dog, corn beef on rye, egg salad, slice of pizza or a hot chocolate. It was three days of nonstop cooking to please the clients.
I did this routine three years in a row and the item that I was asked to duplicate each year was my Trio of Cocktail Salads display which I was told by several of my peers that the salads supplied a major visual and flavorous version for the light eater.
Large Table salads like the Omelette Garden Salad. Now that Covid makes food handling more difficult, make it easy on yourself and make them in personal shooter or cocktail glasses.
They are the Splendid Spinach Salad, the Spicy Carrot Salad and the Snazzy Summer Salad.
All three of the salad recipes were shown to me by the chefs that held head positions at Canadian Pacific Hotels, The Palliser, The Banff Springs and Hotel Vancouver. They still taste and satisfy and presented in nifty highball glasses gets a favourable response even from the non vegans. Here are those recipes.
You will need; Splendid Spinach Salad
2 lbs of spinach, washed and torn
1 cup mandarin orange sections
1 cup of slivered purple onion
6 boiled eggs cut into ¼ sections
½ lb of crumbled bacon bits
2 cups heavy cream
1/3 cup white vinegar
½ tsp dry mustard
4 tbs of sugar
Salt and pepper to taste
Place all the salad ingredients equally and uniformly into chilled cocktail glasses.
Place the salad dressing ingredients into a jar, seal and shake till well blended. Taste to adjust seasonings and it should have a pleasant sweet and sour taste. Drizzle the dressing over the cocktail salads and serve promptly.
Spicy Carrot Salad
1lb of fresh grated organic carrots
2 in. cube of fresh grated ginger
1 lemon freshly squeezed
1 tbs of cider vinegar
2 cloves of garlic minced
¼ tsp of cayenne pepper
½ tbs of toasted caraway seeds
½ tsp of ground cumin Place in glass bowl.
Now and whisk in 1 tbs olive oil and 3 tbs of plain yogurt season with salt and pepper. Pour over carrots and ginger and toss to coat. Place into cocktail glass and garnish with some fresh cilantro sprigs.
The Snazzy Summer Salad
1/3 cup sugar toasted sliver almonds
5 cups of mixed baby salad greens
5 green onions thinly sliced
1 cup of cut sections of a blood orange
2 firm ripe avocados cubed
1 tbs of lemon juice
1 tbs of tarragon vinegar
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tbs honey
½ cup virgin olive oil
To prepare dressing combine above ingredients and whisk in small drizzles of olive oil until well blended and creamy in texture. Season to taste with salt and pepper. In large bowl place the salad ingredients, the chilled greens and toss with the dressing to coat well. Place equally divided into cocktail glasses for best presentation.
These three salads make great sides for out door grilled chicken, meats or fish.