Salad, Like Life, Is What You Make It. This Mysterious Papaya-Avocado Salad Will Improve Your Salad Life
It has a simple miso dressing that is pure magic. Plus, a lime-mango tabbouleh that we're eating for breakfast. Woo-hoo!
BACK WHEN WE OPENED the Department of Salad for business, in late 2020, the world was a very different place. In our small, extremely specific corner of it, we felt honor bound to defend salad more than was probably necessary, mainly because a lot of people couldn’t believe we were dedicating an entire newsletter— and, basically, our remaining years on this planet—to salad.
And they would say so. Rude!
We were also frequently exasperated by people telling us, unasked, “I don’t really like salad,” which we elaborated on in this interview with Chef Andrew Zimmern (wherein I point out how saying such a thing is a lot like saying you don’t like food).
Today, though, we have a new pet peeve regarding the bizarre and unfair treatment of salad, which we will touch on very briefly and then banish from our consciousness forever. It is a newfangled and very strange selling point being bandied about by people who have gotten on the salad bandwagon in the last five years: “Salads don’t have to be boring!”
It reminds us of the ploy that certain flam-flam politicians use to gain false favor: Create a big fuss about a problem that wasn’t even there to begin with and then claim to have the solution for fixing it.
Before I go further, let me say that nothing makes me and the boys in the lab happier than the salad bandwagon’s expansion. We have always cheered on and promoted the growing number of saladeers out there—and have frequently featured books and recipes from the best of them, here in the Department of Salad
We have always maintained that our duty and our fondest dream is making sure more and more people put more and more salad into their pie holes. (Another one of my dreams is that the expression “pie hole”—which makes me laugh every time anyone says it—will eventually be replaced by “salad hole.”™️ )
But back to the whole “Salads don’t have to be boring” thing (which is the stepdaughter of “salads can be more than leaves”). That was never really the problem, now, was it? If you make boring salads or order boring salads in restaurants, that’s a YOU problem.
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Because salads are what YOU make them. For some, that is a giant thoughtless bowl of assorted vegetation drowned in a creamy dressing and covered in croutons. Which I brought up as an example of a bad salad, but now it sounds pretty good to me. That is the nature of salad.
Aside from the fact that salads are exactly as bad or as wonderful as you decide to make them, there’s also the fact that if you are a person with a healthy imagination and appetite, a boring salad one day is a thrilling salad the next. A wedge or a giant Greek salad might sound outrageously delicious on Monday but on the following Sunday you might be unable to get the image of an asparagus and fennel salad with a scoop of ricotta stuck in your brain and find you can barely recall that other salads exist. Or you’re suddenly in nostalgic need of your favorite falafel cart falafel, but you want salad. Or you find yourself in desperate need of vitamin C, especially in the form of oranges. Or you need tomatoes and you need them now—like, RIGHT NOW. Or you are hankering for pears. Or you feel like eating a lot of mozzarella and still being able to say you had salad.
And frankly, sometimes you do want “just a bowl of leaves, which can be magnificent with the right dressing. Salad is not one thing. Generalizing helps no one. And you can decide what salad is on any given day. (Don’t believe me? Check out the Department of Salad Index.)
And this includes reinterpreting salads from your past, to satisfy your more contemporary cravings, the way I did two of the battle-axe salads from my longstanding repertoire.
Both of the salads I have for you today are recipes that I have been making, in one form or another, for at least a decade, ever since I came across them in a stash of old Gourmet magazines gathering dust in large and rambling junk store in the mountains of Boone, NC.
Since Cookie and I have gone through a lot of papaya in our almost two years together, I recently added mysterious and alluring papaya to the miso-dressed salad below, which was originally made with persimmon (and watercress; I’ve used arugula). It’s now one of my new favorite dishes, even though it was already one of my favorite old dishes. I’m going to beg you to try the miso dressing, which is simple to make and absolutely revelatory. (I made my version lemonier and cut back the olive oil quite a bit.)
The tabbouleh is also a dish that I’ve come back to again and again, adapting it to suit my mood—and my mood right now is mango. I can’t get enough. The original recipe used melon and mint (as in a traditional tabbouleh)—but with extra lime, basil in place of the mint, and double the amount of fruit, my version has turned into my standby refreshing breakfast salad.
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ONE SMALL REQUEST
Would you mind hitting the ❤️ button at the top left or bottom left of this newsletter if you enjoy being here? I could really really use some pepping up. XO—Emily
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*RECIPE: Health-Giving Papaya and Avocado Salad with Magic Miso Dressing, adapted from an old issue of Gourmet
Serves 4 to 6
I call this beautiful salad “health giving” because it doesn’t contain a single ingredient that nutritionists haven’t bragged about over the years—to the point of hero worship—and it makes you feel good! On top of that, it’s a breeze to make but looks and tastes like something you’d get in a fancy restaurant. You can treat it like a tossed salad if you like, but the avocado will break down and melt into the dressing a bit; this muddies the distinct qualities of each element. So I prefer dressing the fruit and greens separately and layering them.
¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons water
3 tablespoons white miso
Several grindings of black pepper
⅓ cup plus 2 tablespoons olive oil
2 firm, just ripe avocados, peeled, split lengthwise, pitted, and thinly sliced crosswise
1 1-pound ripe papaya, peeled, seeded, quartered lengthwise, and thinly sliced crosswise
5 to 6 ounces baby arugula
In a mini food processor, combine the lemon juice, water, miso, and black pepper and process until smooth. Slowly stream in the oil, allowing it to emulsify before adding more. You will have a gorgeous glossy mixture. Taste it; you might want a pinch of salt and more pepper. (This makes enough for two salads.)
When ready to serve, combine the avocado and papaya in a large bowl and drizzle with 5 or 6 tablespoons of the dressing. Toss very gently to coat, being careful not to mangle the fruit. Separately, toss the arugula with enough dressing to lightly coat (2 or 3 tablespoons); taste for more dressing. Divide the fruit evenly between separate plates or on a single platter and top with the arugula.
*RECIPE Basil-Lime “Tabbouleh” with Fresh Mango, adapted from an old issue of Gourmet
Serves 4 or so
You can make this recipe with white bulgur rather than fine bulgur; I’ve used both. Fine is cooked by pouring boiling water over it and letting it soak for 20 to 30 minutes (or until tender) then draining if necessary. White bulgur is coarser and chewier and must be simmered for about 10 minutes, left to sit off the heat with the lid on for 5 minutes, and usually drained.
This is a delicious salad for any meal, but as I mentioned earlier, it has become a breakfast favorite.
¾ cup fine or white bulgur, cooked according to package instructions, transferred to a big bowl, and cooled completely in the fridge
2 cups loosely packed basil leaves
¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon olive oil
6 tablespoons fresh lime juice, plus more for drizzling at the end
Zest of 1 lime
1 tablespoon honey
⅛ teaspoon cayenne
Pinch salt
2 cups cubed mango (2 large mangos); here’s how
½ scant cup very thinly sliced red onion (I used a quarter of a medium onion and sliced it on my mandoline)
In a mini food processor combine the basil, olive oil, lime juice, lime zest, honey, cayenne, and salt; puree until smooth. Taste; you want it to be a bit sweet so you might like a bit more honey.
Add the mango and onion to the bulgur and drizzle with about ½ of the lime-basil mixture; toss to coat. Taste for more dressing or a good drizzle of fresh lime juice; you want it nicely drenched but not swimming. You can serve this immediately or stick it in the fridge overnight for breakfast or lunch the next day. And you can use any extra dressing to refresh the leftovers, if they happen.
A Couple of Final Things 🥬
I found this, on The Atlantic’s Instagram, particularly upsetting but also very good to know.
I found the Ravishing Radish Hat, which I read about in New York Magazine, absolutely insane in the most delightful way. It’s really expensive, but it’s also handmade art by Tel Aviv milliner Maor Zabara. A gal can always dream (of a world in which everyone has a radish hat).
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🥬 🥬🥬 That’s It! We’re done here! We’ll see you soon with a recipe for authentic Swedish Blood Dumplings. I’m kidding—it’s going to be salad.
🥬🥬 ONE MORE THING: Please remember that while you may receive The Department of Salad as an e-mail, all issues of the newsletter—along with any corrections, the archive, and our Fancy New Recipe Index—are always available at the Department of Salad website. (You can always search “The Department of Salad” or go directly to emilyrnunn.substack.com.) All the recipes from all the newsletters will be there for you. To search the Index, simply use the search function (command F) that produces a search bar in the upper-right-hand corner of the page.
🥬 IN THE MEANTIME: If you feel like sharing the Department of Salad with friends or family who deserve it, please do so with the buttons below. It would mean the world to us! And thank you, always, for being a subscriber. ❤️ 💕 💝
I love everything about the Dept of Salad. Sorry you need pepping up at all-- the very begetter of such a marvellous institution shouldn't need it because the compliments and dosh should roll in so regularly that a state of elated being should always be yours. But just in case, this is a bit of pep and appreciation
this was a really cheery (and utterly delicious-sounding) post.