Riverside Garlic Salad

This is our signature salad, developed from a recipe handed down to me and my siblings from my father, Alfred J. Paradise. Dad loved to cook, and he passed that passion for good food and entertaining on to all of his children. I also place partial blame on both of my parents for helping to get me into this mess, as they both new how to cook and entertain, and ended up instilling this ‘flaw’ in all of their children. It was rare that a week went by without some sort of get together in the Paradise house involving food and drink with either our large extended family or agglomerations of friends, neighbors or business associates. I grew up around food and fun, and have tried to turn those wonderful childhood memories and experiences into a respectable career here at The Riverside.

Dad was an empirical cook, and rarely did he consult a cookbook or magazine for a recipe. He flew by the seat of his pants, often recreating food from only the gustatory memories of dishes he’d had in restaurants. He took great delight in 'jacking' with people who’d ask for recipes of his original creations. “Oh, there’s no recipe” he’d say, “It’s just a few tablespoons of this or a cup or two of that.” Or he would go to the other extreme, saying things like “boil the potatoes for 17 minutes, then immediately douse them in 52-degree water for six minutes, making sure the water maintains the 52-degree temperature.” He would delight inwardly as his unsuspecting dupes would diligently write down his culinary canard, always to come back at some later point and complain that although they followed the instructions to the letter, they were unable to recreate his recipe.

This is no canard; this recipe should make enough dressing for four large servings of garlic salad. You’ll need a large round-bottom wooden salad bowl, ( http://www.bowlmill.com/cgi-bin/bowlmill/1015U1.html?id=okCdE7oK ) the rougher the texture of the wood, the better, and a hefty wooden spoon.

6 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon coarse kosher salt
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/2 lemon
½ cup of olive oil
½ cup ice cubes

Press the garlic, or mince extremely fine, and place in the bottom of the salad bowl with the kosher salt and Dijon mustard. With the back of the spoon, make a smooth paste – grind that salt into the garlic. Add the juice of ½ lemon to the paste, and slowly add the olive oil, stirring to a smooth consistency. Add the ice cubes, and stir well, until the ice has started to melt. You don’t have to totally melt the ice at this point – you can pour the mixture into a cup, and use within the hour. The ice does three things – it emulsifies the mixture to help prevent it from separating, helps cut the potency, and obviously cools the dressing. This salad should be served very cold, with cold crisp lettuce, mozzarella and croutons - no store bought croutons; here is our standard Riverside crouton recipe.

5 slices Farm to Market Sourdough Bread http://www.farmtomarketbread.com/
¼ cup olive oil
3 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons garlic salt
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

In a large sauté pan, heat the olive oil and butter to near smoking. Add the garlic salt and cayenne pepper, and then add the bread, (which you’ve cut into ½” cubes). Keep tossing the croutons until they’re coated with the oil/butter/salt mixture and toasted to a crunch.

Toss the lettuce with the croutons and the shredded mozzarella (use whatever type of lettuce you like - we use a mixture of romaine, fresh spinach when available, and mixed spring greens. This salad is also excellent with good old hand-shredded iceberg lettuce - that's all we had growing up as poor white children in Johnson County, KS).
Add the dressing a little at a time, and keep tossing until all of the mixture is coated. SERVE COLD on chilled plates, and top with fresh cracked pepper.