Cooking A Salad

Salads give free creative rein to an imaginative cook. They can range anywhere from one vegetable side dish dressed in a simple vinaigrette, to a seductive first course designated to open the palate, to a more complicated mixture intended to serve as a full meal. Salads can be made from almost anything-Every conceivable vegetable, almost any cut of meat, fish, poultry, pasta, grain, beans, and, on occasion, a flower or two.