Move over, beurre blanc: vinaigrette's on its way up

Nation's Restaurant News, June 26, 1989 by Florence Fabricant

Move over, beurre blanc: Vinaigrette's on its way up

Vinaigrette has gradually evolved from just one of a choice of several salad dressings to the dressing of choice in the more stylish white-tablecloth operations. Recently, it is a sauce for a main dish. As olive oil replaces butter, vinaigrette appears to be taking over beurre blanc's territory.

Vinaigrette dresses a warm first-course salad, with or without greens and is becoming a sauce of choice for fish. And in this capacity the kinds of variations to which the beurre blanc had been subjected are now being applied to vinaigrette. There are more flavors of vinaigrette out there than there are kinds of ice cream in a dipping shop.

Unlike a fragile emulsion, such as a beurre blanc, vinaigrette requires little technical expertise beyond a good sense of flavoring balance. The acid ingredients give it shelf life, so it can be prepared in advance, and it takes a relatively small amount to do the job on a portion of food. In fact, too much can spell disaster.

Were a consultant to dream up the ideal sauce for an operation interested in making a culinary statement on a budget, the only possible answer would be vinaigrette.

But vinaigrette alone is too simple for most menus. Assume the oil is olive. What then?

Balsamic vinaigrette is the answer in hundreds of operations around the country, even one as down-home as Savannah, on New York's Upper West Side. And the second choice? Sherry vinaigrette or mustard vinaigrette. Desert Cafe in Santa Fe, N.M., offers both.

Another approach is to redefine the standard red-or white-wine vinegar. The Rowe, in Ellsworth, Mich., serves radicchio with a Rubesco vinaigrette, Rubesco being a proprietary red wine made by Lungarotti in Umbria, Italy. At Goodfellows in Minneapolis, instead of white-wine vinegar, the mixed greens are served with an emerald Riesling vinaigrette.

But these are still relatively tame, as is the raspberry vinaigrette at Indian Trail in Winnetka, III., or the strawberry at Hemingway's in Killington, Vt. Even the ginger vinaigrette in New York, at both The Sign of the Dove (with a grilled shrimp salad) and the Terrace (with a salad of sea scallops), could hardly be called out of the ordinary. The Terrace also has a more unusual warm lemon vinaigrette served with grilled swordfish.

In Washington, at 21 Federal, the grilled swordfish is served with a grilled scallion-tomato vinaigrette. For several years Alfred Portale has been serving a squab salad with couscous and a curried vinaigrette. Tomatillo vinaigrette at Baby Routh in Dallas and tomato-basil vinaigrette at the Radisson in St. Paul and the Vista in Manhattan are some others from around the country.

Wolfgang Puck's Postrio in San Francisco enhances the ginger vinaigrette served on charred rare tuna with the addition of soy sauce. He also has a Cantonese duck salad with five greens and an orange vinaigrette; grilled sand dabs with black olives and sun-dried tomato vinaigrette; and a paillard of Alaskan salmon with tomato, onion, and cilantro vinaigrette.

The warm grilled chicken salad at Melange in Chicago comes with an orange-garlic vinaigrette. At Village Green in New York, the sourdough-battered pompano is dressed with a miso vinaigrette, and Richard Perry, in St. Louis, uses a honey vinaigrette on the warm duck salad.

Among the more unusual vinaigrettes now served in New York are Restaurant Lafayette's oyster vinaigrette, with clams and cucumbers wrapped with fresh salmon; the Post house's smoked salmon vinaigrette served with crab cakes; Union Suare Cafe's sage-buttermilk vinaigrette, with a warm mushroom salad; and the duck liver vinaigrette with the confit of duck gizzards and lentils at Alison's on Dominck Street.

Square One in San Francisco adds to the list a warm pancetta vinaigrette served over a spinach salad with mushrooms, green onions, and egg mimosa.

Aside from creating a sauce that is too sharp by using proportionately too little oil, the only other risk in relying on a vinaigrette sauce for some dishes comes from applying it too soon. Green vegetables and meats contain enzymes that react with the acid, causing them to discolor.

Most of the time, the olive oil is a common denominator. Occasionally another oil, walnut, for example, or hazelnut or sesame will impart additional flavor. However, varying the vinegar or the seasoning ingredients creates infinite possibilities in the vinaigrette department. In this respect and also because the acidity of the sauce keeps whetting the appetite, it may be a while before we tire of vinaigrette.