Let us leave the lettuce alone. Salad of hearts of palm, avocado, and....

Annalena insists on a salad at every meal.  PERIOD .  It didn't used to be that way, but after she started reading the writings of  Alice Waters, who feels, with some good reason, that a salad is the hardest part of the meal to prepare, she started serving them.  Every night.  Annalena's salads are almost always green, but not always lettuce.  In fact, they are rarely lettuce, or lettuce by themselves.   Mache, arugula, pea shoots, etc, all make appearances in Annalena's salads, as the main ingredient. About half the time, they are the ONLY ingredient, with a simple vinaigrette.  The other half the time, there is some "enhancer," for lack of a better word, like dried fruit, or candied nuts, or olives, or cheese, etc.

Annalena and the Guyman's taste in the greens for salads runs toward the bitter end of the spectrum.  For most people, this is fine.  For others, it is not.  Their friend, whom Annalena shall refer to as  "ginger peachy" due to his complexion,  decidedly does NOT like bitter greens.  But he DOES like beets.  Keep this in mind as you read.

So as Annalena was preparing the menu for a dinner for "GP", she found a salad recipe that seemed right, and brought back memories of an ingredient she had stopped using: heart of palm.

Back in "the day," when Annalena was a law student, she and her friend Liz discovered heart of palm at just about the same time.  To us, it was an exotic ingredient and ultimately, it still is.  Pale white, thick, soft, with the taste of the can that you simple will not be able to eliminate completely, it is exactly what the name says:  it is the heart of a palm tree.  Indeed, this made it even more exoitc.  And we used it often.  We made salads.  We made gratins.  We fried it.  Annalena THINKS we missed baking with it, but maybe we didn't.

As she approached her dotage, Annalena stopped using it because, well, it's in cans, and she has told you all how she feels about canned foods.  From time to time, she was able to get "fresh" heart of palm, in vacuum  packs, but they simply weren't the same.  To be honest, they didn't taste as good as the canned stuff, and they were tough.  She has also tried, and liked , the closest we have to "local" heart of palm," which is the core of young cat tails, which are available to some degree at farmers markets late in the summer.  These are tough, and require a helluva lot of work.

So, when Annalena saw a recipe in a "gourmet" magazine, giving her permission to use canned heart of palm, she jumped at the chance, and used it.  After modifying it.

This is a good salad.  It has an unusual quality about it, that you will not find in green salads:  you can store what you do not use, and use it the next day.  As she and the Guyman did.  In fact, it may be better.    Annalena shall give you the recipe as it was written, and as she changed it.

You start with two cans of heart of palm, drained.  You will have somewhere between 8 and 10 sticks of palm.  Drain them and pat them dry.  Cut them into circles, about 1/3 of an inch big, and put them into a salad bowl. Eyeball how much you have.  Now, get a ripe avocado (the rough skinned kind:  Haas), and peel it and cut it into small pieces.  Put that in the bowl as well.

The original recipe now called for yellow cherry tomatoes, cut in half.  If you use them, use about as much volume as you have heart of palm.  BUT....

Remember when I said "GP" liked beets?  Well, Annalena had chioggia beets, which have a rosy hue, and golden beets, which have a golden hue, in her refrigerator.  If you like beets, and you have them around, chop them into pieces about as big as the avocado and palm and again, use an equal volume.  (You can learn how to cook beets by searching on this blog).

Now, the dressing.  The original called for two tablespoons of lime juice, two tablespoons of mayonnaise, and two tablespoons of olive oil. Annalena suggests you leave out the olive oil.  The dressing is wet enough as it is, and mayonnaise is pretty rich.  Add salt and pepper to taste, and then pour it all over the salad.  Taste, and if you want more salt, add it then.

The dressing will be a little wet when you make it.  If you store the salad leftovers (if there are any), overnight, the dressing will thicken, and you will need to add some more oil and vinegar the next day.  On the next day,  Annalena did add arugula, and the salad was wonderful.

Play with this, ragazzi.  Do keep the palm and the avocado, but vary ingredient number three as you see fit. And tell Annalena how it turns out.  She DOES want to know.