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Toss the salad

When you've finished preparing a salad, green or otherwise, it's usually time to add the dressing and toss.
It's often said to "toss the salad", which means to season and mix.

Is it easy? Not so easy...

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Keywords for this post:Tips Tricks Salad Dressing Mixing Cutlery Hands

Last modified on: March 8^th 2024

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Toss the salad

Imagine, your salad bowl is well filled, almost full, with the delicious salad you've just prepared, and you're about to sit down to dinner, so you need to add the dressing, and above all mix it well so that all the dressing is evenly distributed over the salad.

So what's the problem? you might be thinking, just pour in the dressing and toss.

tourner une salade avec des couverts

In principle, of course, there's nothing revolutionary about it, but in practice, it's not so easy, especially if you have large pieces in your salad, for example a green salad with its leaves whole, not cut into chiffonade.

Pouring the dressing over it is no problem, but mixing it is not so easy. Naturally, you use your (salad) cutlery and try to do the best you can to mix it.
There's no secret about it, though: there's a big risk of getting a lot of sauce on the side (especially if the salad bowl is quite full), and it's very easy to get a few drops of sauce on your clothes.
When we were kids, my grandmother used to let us toss the salad, and we loved it. When we succeeded, she'd take one look at the contents of the salad bowl and say "You're ready for your wedding!" Maybe yours is too?

But let's face it, this cutlery method isn't very efficient, nor very quick, so how can we do it any other way?

Let's take a look at what's done in restaurants: they make all kinds of salads, and how do they turn them?

tourner salade à la main

It's both simple and ultra-efficient: they pour the dressing over the salad, often in a high-sided container, and then a cook stirs the whole thing with his or her hands, often gloved, which takes a few seconds for a perfectly turned salad, which is then arranged on the serving plates.

It's as simple as I said, you just don't have to be afraid of getting your hands "sauced".

To sum up: to turn a salad quickly and efficiently, it's best to go at it with both hands.

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