Theme Recipe: Parisian Salad

I had such terrible Internet gremlins when we were doing our France Fright Night that the recipe never got posted.  Since then end of the school year stuff has gotten in the way.  In any case, better late than never.  

This is an old salad in France and has undergone a lot of changes and updates over the years.  What follows is based strictly on the original, with some modern variants at the bottom.  Basically the original was a bibb lettuce, mushroom and ham affair with cheese cubes, it sported a classic homemade French vinaigrette to dress it. 

1 Head Bibb or Boston Lettuce

3 cups sliced button mushrooms

Juice of 2 lemons

3 Slices of ham of choice (the original even used processed ham)

1 cup cubed Cantal cheese (that's French Cheddar), Gruyere, Emmenthal or "Swiss Cheese" in block

French Vinaigrette:

1 tbsp. favorite wine vinegar (can used any type)

2 tsp. Dijon or other French mustard

1/2 tsp. salt

Fresh black pepper to taste

4 tbsp. favorite salad oil (anything from Canola to Olive is fine)

1.  Wash the lettuce well, and dry.

2.  Pour the lemon juice over mushrooms as you are slicing.  Stir well and set aside.

3.  Prepare the vinaigrette, by placing all the ingredients in jar, seal and shake well.

4.  Cube the ham and cheese.

5.  Drain the mushrooms.  Combine with ham and cheese and toss with a little dressing.

6.  Tear up the lettuce and place in salad bowl, pour in the mushroom mixture and add the rest of the dressing, toss well to combine and serve in an attractive salad bowl with tongs or salad fork and spoon.

Variations:

Old time traditional variations included, sliced or chopped cornichons and sliced shallots.  Often the salad bowl was rubbed with garlic.  Greens also varied.

These days the salad has all sorts of added ingredients.  Just a cursory look at the recipes for this on the web sees all sorts of stuff added from avocado to apple (as above), dried fruit to olives, even whole kernel corn.  Most recipes still have the basic of ham, cheese and mushrooms, but as long as you use the vinaigrette as the dressing, add anything you like, and it's still a Parisian salad.  Other popular add in's include:  cold sliced potato, peas, tomatoes, sweet peppers, sweet onions, and slices hard cooked egg.  Some meats are switched out for the ham, cold of various sorts, like Bologna or fried crumbled bacon are popular.  One thing that is a serious no, no is mayonnaise.  

Of course there are vegetarian or even vegan versions of the salad out there.  To me, to be real Parisian salad it needs something smokey and something cheeselike.  A lot of vegan version, like this one from Food.com, is a nice little salad, but it's not Parisian--heck it doesn't even have mushrooms....  Turns out there are plenty of choices for truly vegan cheese.  It easier to make the salad simply vegetarian, since real cheese can be used, substitute the smokey element with vegetarians sausage, smoked tofu or tempeh or even vegetarian baked beans that have been rinsed.