Louise-Adélaïde Boisnard 11:30 a.m., February 19, 2022

Without dressing the salad is nothing.

This week, the columnists of the Table des Bons Vivants come back to a must: vinaigrette.

To be eaten with vegetables such as steamed fish or cold meat.

Laurent Mariotte gives you all his tips for making chef's salad dressings, to adapt according to the ingredients of his dish, his desires or what's in his cupboards.

"The sauce is the punctuation of the salad" would have said Gérard Depardieu.

Yves Camdeborde, cook and columnist at the Table des bons Vivants outbids: "The sauce is the punctuation of French cuisine".

Yet nothing is simpler than a classic vinaigrette in terms of ingredients: it's salt, pepper, oil and vinegar.

How to succeed every time and modify it according to your desires?

The leaders of the show give you their tips.

The right proportions of vinaigrette

A balanced dressing is 1/4 acid and 3/4 fat.

So just take a tablespoon of the vinegar, dissolve a pinch of salt in it (the salt must be put in the vinegar and not in the oil, because it does not dissolve in it), add 3 tablespoons of oil (olive, grapeseed, rapeseed, sunflower...) and finally add some black pepper last so that it retains its flavor.

This sauce can be made with a spoon, a fork or a small whisk.

The trick so that the oil and vinegar do not separate: add hot water to bind them.

This trick also works to catch up with a slightly sliced ​​Béarnaise sauce.

Read also >> How was the vinaigrette born?

Play with the textures of the vinaigrette...

To take your sauce to the next level, you can play with its consistency by adding shallot, garlic or even onion to the base of your vinaigrette.

Adding mustard allows for a more textured and thick sauce, which emulsifies well.

Yogurt provides sweetness.

... and with its flavors

You can add a dash of curry, cumin, chopped hazelnuts or citrus zest to your sauce.

Otherwise, feel free to play around with different oils and vinegars.

For example, for arugula salad which has character, it is better to use neutral oil such as grapeseed.

On the contrary, for lettuce, you need one with character.

Hazelnut oil works very well with chicory.

It is also possible to flavor your oil by mixing and infusing herbs in it.

It must then be passed through a Chinese to remove the pieces and it is consumable.

>> Find all Laurent Mariotte's podcast and replay shows here 

If you want to avoid the acidity of wine vinegar, you can use milder cider vinegar.

Or you can completely replace the vinegar with passion fruit juice, to have a more fruity and round sauce in the mouth.

Finally, the latest trick from Laurent Mariotte is to replace the oil with roast chicken jus, to bring in a new flavor scheme.