Signature salad dressings: Vietnamese vinaigrette? Latino lagniappe? Niboshi nicoise? Salad dressings liven up a plate of greens, and help give salads a signature touch. Dressings with ethnic and exotic flavors tempt consumer curiosity

Prepared Foods, Oct, 2005 by J. Hugh McEvoy

Consumers are fascinated by other cultures, and this inquisitiveness is now evidenced in salad dressing trends. Their interest in global gourmet foods is exemplified by Nicoise salad, a French main dish salad made of greens, tomatoes, tuna, anchovies, and usually olives, hard-boiled eggs, and capers. Add an emulsified dressing made with ground Japanese-style dried sardines, which complements the traditional flavors very well, and you have Niboshi nicoise.

Hide a few perfectly steamed Cajun crawfish beneath a salad of beautiful Chilean greens seasoned with a lime, cilantro, and cumin Mexican dressing, and it is Latino lagniappe, a Latino salad with a Louisiana surprise.

On menus everywhere, national and multi-national restaurant chains are adding new and different dressings to an ever-growing list of salads. McDonald's Restaurant (Oak Brook, Ill.) has publicly stated that a major factor in its remarkable turnaround and record sales was the introduction of its new premium salads. There is no doubt that the brand power of Newman's Own (Westport, Conn.) dressing has been a big part of that huge success. Though "the arches" had launched a few versions of salad in the past, never before has any introduction been so widely accepted. The consumer acceptance of those wildly popular dressings may have been the key.

Traditional vinaigrette, made classically of three parts oil to one part vinegar, plus any of a number of herbs, spices or seasonings, usually exhibits a visible separation between the oil and vinegar phases, unless shaken prior to serving. Some commercially manufactured dressings exhibit this division; other producers emulsify their dressings, eliminating the problem and the need to shake. Today innovative research chefs incorporate far more complex and exciting blends of flavors and ingredients than ever before. Food developers are being faced with greater technical challenges than simply stabilizing an oil and vinegar emulsion.

Traditional Salad Dressings

With a career in food spanning over 34 years in eight states, chef John DaLoia is the corporate executive chef (CEC) for McCain Foods (Florenceville, N.B.). Additionally, he is a CEC with the American Culinary Federation (St. Augustine, Fla.) and the vice chair of the Research Chefs Association (RCA)-Chicagoland Midwest region. He works cross-functionally with R&D, sales, procurement and marketing to help drive new product development, and develop new business across all company brands.

When asked to define a "traditional" dressing, chef DaLoia says, "A salad dressing is a sauce, and any sauce should bring balance to the dish. If the major components of the salad are greens with a slightly bitter flavor, the sauce should bring sweetness, acid, and the roundness of either a vegetable fat, such as olive oil, or a vegetable puree. If the major components are sweet, such as a fruit salad, the sauce should bring a touch of sour, perhaps dairy notes, and a creamy texture. Yogurt, sour cream, and an herb to freshen the palate, would be a good example."

Of course, mayonnaise (considered by some a "mother sauce"), the foundation for many dressings, is essential for a myriad of protein-and pasta-based salads. This traditional dressing contains all the components of a well constructed sauce; roundness from the egg yolk and the olive oil, acid to cleanse the palate from the lemon juice, and salt to brighten flavor. It can be flavored with any number of aromatic ingredients, from roasted garlic (making aioli) to fresh herbs (making any number of innovative new dressings).

Trendy Oils

In 1982, less than 30,000 metric tons of olive oil was imported into this country. In 2003, the figure was 214,473 tons; about 10% of the world's production. Bob Bauer, president of the North American Olive Oil Association (Neptune, N.J.), tells us that imports this year will be even higher because of olive oil's healthy image.

On May 25, 2005, the New York Times ran an article in the food section entirely about upscale olive oils. On Chicago's super fashionable Michigan Avenue, The Magnificent Mile, a new boutique boutique--Ta-Ze--had opened. It is a super-pricey shop selling only one product: rare, trendy, upscale, designer olive oils from all over the world.

Though most oils are imported from Italy, Spain, Greece and France, the rarest could be extra-virgin brands from Tunisia, Australia, Israel and the U.S. (The latter might originate from McEvoy Olive Ranch in Petaluma, Calif., for example). Oils from South Africa, Argentina, Chile, New Zealand, Turkey, Peru, Lebanon, Morocco, Croatia and Jordan may also be available. Even Japan produces some olive oil, a legacy of 16th-century Spanish and Portuguese missionaries, on the island of Shikoku, near the center of the archipelago. In New York City, at last summer's Fancy Food Show in the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, olive oils from 445 companies in 16 countries were on display.

Because of labeling laws in the E.U., even a bottle of oil that says "imported from Italy" may actually contain oils from several countries, including Turkey, Tunisia, Spain and Greece. If it does, the label must state that. The average consumer likes greenish, peppery, Tuscan-style oils. A few years ago, you would not find greenish oils in Puglia in southern Italy, because they made oils with riper olives; today you may find "Tuscan-style" oils anywhere.