Watermelon Balsamic Salad
This is a weird salad, but it’s got a lovely, bright taste, and a great combination of flavours.
My friend E was going to send me the recipe, but we went through the ingredients before I went shopping, and I didn’t remember to look in my email for the recipe before I made it.
This is a formula more than a recipe.
Ingredients:
watermelon
tomato
red onion
basil
balsamic vinegar
extra virgin olive oil
pepper flakes
Gorgonzola cheese
Dice water melon and tomato into fork-handle-able pieces, at about a 2:1 ratio of watermelon to tomato. Finely dice red onion (better yet, plane it on a mandoline) . . . how much is going to be up to your taste, but remember that it’s raw, and therefore going to be showy in the salad). If you were making a large bowl of it (say, 5 or 6 quarts), I would use as much as a half of a red onion. You can always add more later. I used a quite large handful of the basil, sliced into thin slivers, as I happen to like it quite a bit.
The dressing is a mixture of the olive oil and balsamic. The original recipe called for 1/4 cup of balsamic and a 1/2 cup of the olive oil, but I don’t care for that much oil, so I lowered it to 1/4 cup of olive oil without an issue. If you’re doing a smaller batch, adjust the oil and balsamic to be about the amount of dressing you’d like on a salad. Pour it over the salad and toss gently to coat evenly. Sprinkle on a few pinches of hot chili flakes, and add the Gorgonzola. For the 5-6 quart bowl, add the whole package of Gorgonzola. Adjust down from there for a different size, or if you’re just not that into the Gorgonzola.