Friday, May 29, 2015

Summer Avocado Salad

For the salad:
2 heads of Romaine lettuce (3 if only using Romaine hearts)
1 bunch of cilantro
1 bunch of green onions
2-3 Hass avocados

For the dressing:
2-3 large limes
1 clove of garlic
1/3 cup of extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons of honey
1 teaspoon of kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions

  1. After washing all the greens, chop the lettuce into bite-size pieces and place in a large serving bowl. Finely chop the cilantro and thinly slice the green onions, then add to the bowl and lightly toss everything together.
  2. If you have a lime juicer, then juice the limes. If not, then roll the limes against a hard surface, firmly pressing down, to break up the insides, then cut them in half.
  3. Halve the avocados, remove the seeds, then cut cross-sections in the avocados inside the skin.
  4. Drizzle a little lime juice on the avocados to prevent browning, then scoop out the avocado pieces and add them to the bowl.
  5. In a mixing bowl, add the olive oil, honey, salt, and pepper.
  6. Finely mince the clove of garlic and add it to the mixing bowl.
  7. Add/squeeze the lime juice from 2 limes, then whisk everything together. Adjust for taste, as necessary (see notes). 
  8. Drizzle half of the dressing across the salad, toss, then continue to add more until desired level of dressing is reached.
  9. Serve immediately or refrigerate and serve within an hour. 

Notes

The balance of flavors for this salad depends on a lot on the ingredients you are using. For instance, the recipe calls for 2-3 limes, but the limes I purchased were somewhat small and dry, so it actually took me about 4-5 limes to get the amount of juice that I needed for this. The olive flavor in the dressing was not really noticeable in the end result, but if you are really adverse to the stronger flavor of EVOO then you could use the lighter-tasting olive oil. This recipe also adjusts easily for varying quantities of greens, so just keep tasting/adjusting to your preference; in the end, I increased the quantity of everything a little bit because of the size of the group (still should have made more) and had dressing left over. It's pretty forgiving, just don't overdress the salad and it'll be fine.

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