Red Caviar Salad with Avocado and Corn

Choosing the ingredients

1. First of all, a red caviar salad needs the best-quality caviar, and that matters! In recent years it has become somewhat difficult to buy truly good caviar. We stopped buying a “pig in a poke” long ago, by which I mean those opaque metal cans. Even in glass jars the product is not always good. Usually you can buy good caviar by weight, especially if they let you taste a few eggs.

   

   Avocados here are sold individually and are usually a little underripe. The fairly firm flesh of such an avocado is perfect for a red caviar salad. A ripe avocado has a soft, almost creamy texture.

   

   Most of the vegetables in the salad are leaves of various salad plants, torn into pieces: lettuce, iceberg, chicory, radicchio and so on. You can buy the leaves separately and tear them by hand to keep moisture loss to a minimum. But for convenience you can buy a ready-made mix that is already washed, dried and chopped. There are plenty of them on sale.

   

   The supporting additions are a little canned sweet corn, a small juicy carrot, and cherry tomatoes or any other small-fruited tomatoes, as long as they are firm and ripe. For the dressing, a simple olive oil sauce will do. No mayonnaise, though, it is completely out of place here.

   

How to plate the salad

1. Any complex salad is always known for an elaborate, colorful arrangement of ingredients. For example, a layered bean and chicken salad is laid out on a platter and served without mixing. If you like, you can toss the salad at the table or eat it layer by layer.

2. Arrange the salad leaves on two large plates, one per serving. Large ceramic plates of the kind used in Japanese cuisine work well. They have no rim, so all the ingredients fit freely in one layer. Everything that follows is done on both plates at the same time. Push the torn salad leaves toward one edge, about a third of the way, to leave room for the avocado.

   

3. Sprinkle the leaves with corn and carrot. Open the small can of corn and drain all the liquid thoroughly; the kernels should be almost dry. Sprinkle the corn over the salad leaves. Peel a small juicy carrot, ideally a young one straight from the garden. Cut the carrot into thin matchsticks and scatter them over the salad.

   

4. Slice the avocado and place it on the free edge of the plates, one avocado per plate. Cut the avocados in half lengthwise and remove the pit, which is large. By the way, you can plant it in soil and grow a tree. Carefully peel off the tough, firm skin with a knife. It comes off easily. Keep in mind that the skin, like the pit and the leaves of the avocado, contains persin, an unpleasant and dangerous toxin that can cause a severe allergic reaction. Slice the firm flesh crosswise at 6-8 mm intervals. Lay one sliced half on the edge of the plate with the hollow facing up, where there are no salad leaves. Place the second half next to it, green side up. You can slightly shift the slices relative to each other.

   

5. Place the tomato halves on top of the salad. Wash firm, ripe cherry tomatoes, pat them dry with a napkin and remove the stems. Cut each tomato in half. The tomatoes add a wonderful tartness.

   

7. Spoon good red caviar onto the avocado. Put 1 tbsp of caviar (15 g) into the hollow of one half, trying to fill it completely. Spread the rest of the caviar lightly over the other half. Do the same on the second plate. So each serving of salad takes 1.5 tbsp of red caviar (23 g).

   

Dressing

1. The last touch is the salad dressing. After some thought, I decided on a simple vinaigrette-style dressing. For two servings of salad you need about a third of a cup (70 ml) of dressing.

2. Make the dressing: in a small bowl or cup, mix 50 ml of your very best olive oil, 1 tsp of grape vinegar and 5-6 drops of Worcestershire sauce. Season with pepper to taste and whisk thoroughly with a fork. As you whisk, the olive oil and vinegar emulsify nicely into a fairly thick sauce.

   

3. Drizzle the dressing over the salad, only on the part with the salad leaves and vegetables. Don’t pour it over the caviar and avocado.

   

Serving

1. Serve the salad immediately so the delicate eggs don’t dry out. For the same reason, you can’t make this appetizer ahead of time. Then again, a red caviar salad takes no more than 15 mins to make, so there is no need to rush.

   

   Most of the ingredients can be swapped to your taste. Better not to touch the avocado and, of course, the red caviar. Instead of Worcestershire sauce you can add a few drops of soy sauce or dry aromatic wine. Grape vinegar can be replaced with citrus juice, lime or lemon, but they are too aromatic. Beyond that, let your imagination run.