Salad
Salad is a dish prepared from different types of raw or cooked vegetables or fruits itself or garnished with edible oils. Besides vegetables, salad can be prepared using non-vegetarian items like cooked meat, prawns, or any other fish.
Commonly the vegetables like beet root, carrot, cucumber, onion, radish, and tomato are used. Salads are dressed with leafy vegetables like cabbage both green and violet, capsicum, coriander leaves, celery leaves, curry leaves, mint leaves, lettuce, and spinach. Fruits such as apple, banana, grapes, guava, mango, papaya, pomegranate, pine apple and water melon, are the best choices of the fruit salad. Sprouted grams are also mixed with salads to enhance the flavour and nutritional values. In India, the vegetable salad made with curd is termed as Raita. There are different types of salad like Garden salad, Greek salad, Tuna salad, Japanese salad, Bean salad and are prepared for various occasions. Flavour of the salads can be changed by adding different types of salad dressings. These dressings are cream, olive oil, mayonnaise, vinegar, pepper and fermented milk product like curd.
Importance of Salad
☆Salad is considered as the Prince or King of the meal because it is nutrient rich food.
☆Satisfies the appetite.
☆It provides the feeling of fullness as most of the salads is good sources of fiber.
☆It contains multivitamins which helps us to live a healthy life.
☆Addition of sprouted gram improves the vitamin content and digestibility of protein.
☆Different types of salad can be prepared by using same type of fruits or vegetables in a different proportion and breaks monotonous of the diet.
☆Salads can be prepared easily and according to the preference of the person.
☆There are no strict rules to prepare the salad, but based on the availability of ingredients salads can be prepared.
☆Salads are made eye appealing and tasty.
Different types of salads
i) Green salad or Garden salad
Some people made salad by using common raw vegetables and greens. Most commonly used vegetables are onion, tomato, celery, carrot, mushrooms, parsley, garden beets, cucumber, pepper, olives, and berries. Nuts and oil seeds are also included to enhance the taste and appearance. Leaves like mint, coriander and lettuce are the commonly used herbs to improve the palatability.
ii) Bound salad
These are the salads mainly for barbecues. They are thick salad made up by assembling sauces like mayonnaise. Because of the thickness it can hold its shape and it will be served as a round form by using ice-cream scooper. This can be used as sandwich filling. The food stuffs used for these preparations are mainly non-vegetarian items like tuna, chicken, egg and sometimes potatoes also used for this bound preparation.
iii) Main course salad
These are the salads made up of protein rich food stuffs like fish (tuna, oyster, crabs, shrimps), chicken, or other fleshy foods. These are served as the appetizer. This is commonly called as Dinner Salad. The food stuffs may be fried or grilled prior to the preparation. Sea foods are the main choice for this preparation. Many types of main course salads were prepared by changing the main ingredient of the salad to meet the preferences and needs.
iv) Fruit salad
These are the salads prepared by using canned or fresh fruits or dry fruits. The fresh fruits like apple, orange, mango, avocado, banana, and pine apple are used. The dry-fruits like fig, dates and raisins are used to enhance the taste and appearance and nutrient content. The fruit salad will be served by adding icecreams on the top or by adding custard milk to improve the palatability. This is served as a dessert after the main meal.
