Yesterdish’s Lemon And Garlic Dressing

An acidic bite to pair with a rich cutlet.

While today’s chicken cutlet recipe is the star of the plate, I’d be doing you an injustice if I didn’t also share this really simple recipe for an intense lemon and garlic dressing.

One of the obnoxious things I say about cooking (well, one of the obnoxious things I repeatedly say about cooking) is that it requires two things: knowing what to do, and knowing when you’re done. For me, this simple dressing is done before any oil is added. Lemon juice and zest, garlic, egg yolk, Parmesan, parsley, salt, and pepper. That’s it.

The result is lip-puckeringly delicious. If you find it too acidic for your taste, you can cut the lemon juice with a milder acid like rice vinegar, or you could add oil if you felt like you had to, or you could even stir in a little mayonnaise. But when you’re pairing this with something like the chicken cutlets, I’d suggest trying it on the lettuce (in this case, arugula) first.

See, the dressing is very thin because there’s no oil. But it’s so thin that it forms a very thin coating. So it’s not nearly as overpowering on the plate as it is in concentration, and it gives just the right brightness to make the salad far more than an afterthought.

A note on the odd-looking croutons: these were actually the crusts of the bread that I cut off in making the fresh croutons for the cutlets. I sprayed them with some olive oil, sprinkled on some garlic salt, and toasted them in the oven. It was all of about twenty seconds of work, using stuff that was going to be thrown away.

While it may not be right for a dinner party, we’re just friends hanging out, aren’t we?

From Yesterdish’s recipe box.

---