Red Leaf, Avocado, and Grapefruit Salad with Olive-Mint Vinaigrette
Avocado and Hearts of Palm Salad
Spinach–Goat Cheese Salad with Caramelized Pecans and Jamaica Vinaigrette
Caramelized Pecans or Peanuts (Garapiñados)
Boston Lettuce Salad with Avocado Dressing, Candied Pineapple, and Spicy Pumpkin Seeds
Spicy Pumpkin Seeds (Pepitas Enchiladas)
Watermelon and Tomatillo Salad with Feta Cheese
Jicama, Beet, Orange, and Caramelized Peanut Christmas Salad (Ensalada de Navidad)
Tomato and Mozzarella Salad with Pickled Ancho Chile Vinaigrette
Although the United States shares an immense border with Mexico, Mexican food is often misunderstood here. Take salads, for example. Most Americans don’t think of them as part of our cuisine, but we eat them all the time. And no, we don’t have “taco salads”! We use seasonal, fresh ingredients found in the daily markets and the mercados sobre ruedas (“markets on wheels”) that roll through our neighborhoods and are similar to farmers’ markets in the United States. Mexicans have shopped “local” for centuries.
Not every Mexican dish is full of chiles and heat, and that is true of salads too. What’s more, our everyday salads have a generous share of international elements. They are often dressed with vinaigrettes that include soy sauce, Maggi Sauce (see the sidebar), one or another mustard, and Worcestershire sauce, all standard ingredients in Mexican pantries.
At the same time, we lean toward what may seem to you exotic or unusual, using ingredients like Jamaica, here in the vinaigrette that dresses the Spinach–Goat Cheese Salad with Caramelized Pecans, or the combination of mint and jalapeño that spikes the Watermelon and Tomatillo Salad with Feta Cheese. We give salads texture and crunch by sprinkling nuts, such as the Caramelized Pecans or Peanuts, or Spicy Pumpkin Seeds, as in the Boston Lettuce Salad with Avocado Dressing.
Salads can be party food too. It isn’t December if I’m not walking into a Christmas party with my take on Mexico’s traditional Ensalada de Navidad, which bathes jicama, beets, oranges, and caramelized peanuts in a honey vinaigrette.
However varied our salads may be, they always have an underpinning of simplicity and ease. The French use a whisk or fork to emulsify a vinaigrette, but we just shake it up in a jar or whir it in a blender, and we add ingredients a ojo de buen cubero (“with good judgment,” or “a wise eye”): un tanto de vinagre, un tanto de aceite, y la puntita de una cucharita de mostaza—“up to here of vinegar, up to here of oil, and the tip of a teaspoon of mustard.”