A Fall Calling For Composed Salads

About author / Amy Powell

World traveler; gourmet 30 minute meals; lover of exotic ingredients; winner on FoodTV's Chefs vs City; graduate French Culinary Institute. Her recipes will tantalize your taste buds.

Salads are in order at all times of the year. Winter calls for hearty greens mixed with roasted root vegetables. Spring brings baby lettuce tossed with artichokes, peas, and asparagus. Summer is a fool’s paradise of tomatoes, corn, zucchini, yellow squash, snap peas, and every leafy vegetable under the hot, high sun.

Of all seasons, fall might just be the best time for salads. Particularly early fall when tomatoes are still ripe and hanging low on the vines, corn just doesn’t want to go away, pears are coming into their own and apples are perfuming the orchard. The best of late summer meets the best of early fall on the plate this time of year.

There are many ways to make a salad but most involve three basic steps: chop, dress, toss. While carefree summer days beget the casual throwing in a bowl of whatever is on hand and fresh from the garden, the crisp turn of weather in autumn seems to necessitate a more thoughtful approach. Enter the composed salad.

Anyone who has had a tuna nicoise at a restaurant is familiar with the concept of a composed salad. Unlike the haphazard tossed salad, a composed salad, like the name suggests, is a methodical process of cutting, dressing, and arranging each ingredient on the plate. Beautifully presented--as with the tuna laid side by side with haricot vert, wedges of tomato, quarters of boiled egg, and slices of boiled new potatoes--the composed salad is a thoughtful consideration of the ingredients on the plate and their relationship to each other.

With a typical salad the ingredients are prepped, put in a bowl, and everything is tossed together. A composed salad requires each slice of tomato and individual green bean to be seasoned, sometimes cooked, and plated separately. This time and attention allows for the flavors of each part to be given their due attention. But the responsibility is on the cook to ensure that when the parts come together on the plate, when that bit of tuna meets the slice of tomato and a nib of green bean, that the parts then seamlessly form a delicious whole.

For the fall, I like salad of colliding flavors, textures, and temperatures. Spicy wild arugula meets warm and nutty whole wheat Israeli couscous. Sweet late summer corn and sun ripened red peppers saddle up alongside salty wedges of ricotta salata. Chicken grilled with a smoky dusting of paprika is offset by slightly sweet, nutty, raisin-y vinaigrette made with sherry vinegar and walnut oil.

Highlighting fall’s fruit and nuts might call for a plate of Roquefort, toasted spiced pecans, wine poached pears and escarole. Winter squash coming into season could mean roasted cubes of pumpkin, spinach, quinoa, and plump pepitas.

The options for a composed salad are almost endless as long as each ingredient is given due regard. And in a season of abundance, respect for the salad will yield delicious results.

Serves/Makes: 4

• 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• salt
• black pepper
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 cup whole wheat Israeli couscous
• 2 ears corn
• 4 ounces arugula
• 1 red bell pepper
• 2 ounces ricotta salata
• 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
• 2 tablespoons walnut oil
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil