Use Vinegar and Lemon Juice for the Best Vinaigrette
With the exception of three people, the only thing I miss in Florida is food and drink. I yearn for the wine cellar (and dessert room) at Bern’s steakhouse, authentic Cuban sandwiches, Publix sandwiches (and banana pudding), rock crab claws and a 1905 salad from the Columbia restaurant in Ybor town. Thankfully, this salad is one of the easiest things to recreate at home, unlike a wine cellar in Bern, which would be prohibitively expensive to DIY.
Several dressing recipes can be found online, including one on the restaurant’s website , and there are several reasons why it tastes damn good. Four cloves of minced garlic, a couple tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce, and plenty of dried oregano, but the combination of acids—white wine vinegar and lemon juice—makes this dressing special. You get the astringent, slightly sugary taste of white wine vinegar and the juicy tartness of lemon in one dressing.
When you order a 1905 salad in Columbia, lemon and Worcestershire sauce are added to the table separately from other dressing ingredients. This gives the presentation a bit of zest, but it also brings out the freshness of the lemon juice. It’s a little impractical for my homemade salads, however: several recipes aim to simplify the dressing by emulsifying lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce with oil, vinegar and everything – and that’s fine – but it doesn’t scale well. A meager two teaspoons of lemon juice does not replicate the flavor and aroma of a whole lemon squeezed over a salad just before serving. He is lost and confused.
Solution: Add more lemon juice. Instead of two teaspoons, I added the juice of a whole lemon to the dressing, bringing it much closer to my preferred 50/50 acid to oil ratio. (I also added a whole tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce because I love it.) When I tried the dressing with just two teaspoons, my tongue was full of olive oil and I couldn’t feel anything anymore. (Well, I got a taste of garlic. So much garlic.)
You shouldn’t go crazy with lemon, but I recommend going a little crazy. Either finish the dressing salad by squeezing a lemon wedge over it just before eating, or if that’s too picky for you, squeeze a large lemon into a measuring cup and then add the juice to the dressing to taste. I do not recommend using less than two tablespoons.
If you want to incorporate the power of two acids into your other favorite vinaigrettes, cut the vinegar in half and replace it with the same amount of freshly squeezed lemon juice. (If your recipe calls for 1/4 cup vinegar, use 2 tablespoons vinegar and 2 tablespoons lemon juice.) Or, squeeze a lemon right before serving; it’s just dramatic enough.
How to Make a Spicy 1905 Salad Dressing (Adapted from The Columbia Restaurant)
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup Spanish extra virgin olive oil
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 teaspoons dried oregano
- 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce, plus more to taste
- Juice of 1 lemon
- Salt and pepper for taste
Add all ingredients and two tablespoons of lemon juice to a jar and shake to combine. Taste and add more lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce if needed, keeping in mind that the vinaigrette should be almost uncomfortably harsh when tasted alone. Continue adding lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce until you reach your desired level of astringency and salty spiciness, shaking after each addition. Drizzle and toss with your favorite salad ingredients, but I encourage you to try the 1905 salad. (Don’t laugh at the iceberg. Sometimes the cool crunch of an iceberg is unbeatable.)