Ein Salat als Speise ist eine Zubereitung von Salatgemüse zum Verzehr.
Es besteht zudem aus Sossen und sonstigen Zutaten, z.B. Fleisch, Croutons usw.
Der Name entstammt dem französichem Wort salade (Salat), was wiederum dem lat. salata stammt.
Salad also commonly refers to a blended food item— often meat, seafood or eggs blended with mayonnaise, finely chopped vegetables and seasonings— which can be served as part of a green salad, but is often used as a sandwich filling. Salads of this kind include egg, chicken, tuna, shrimp, and ham salad.
The "green salad" is most often composed of a mixture of uncooked vegetables, built up on a base of leaf vegetables such as one or more Blattsalat varieties, dandelion, Spinat, or arugula.
Other common vegetables in a green salad include Tomaten, Salatgurken, peppers, Pilze, Zwiebel, spring onion, Karotten und Rettich. Other food items such as Nudelgericht, Oliven, gekochte feste Kartoffen, Reis, Croutons, meat (z.B. Schinken, Hühnerfleisch), Käse (z.B. Fisch (z.B. Thunfisch) are sometimes added to salads.
Zubereitungen
Salatsossen
A green salad is often served with a dressing. Some examples include:
Other types of salads
Some salads are based on food items other than fresh vegetables:
- Various Bohnensalats like green bean salad, seven bean salad
- Eiersalat
- Fruit salad — sliced, peeled fruits served in their own juices or with a dressing.
- Larb — the national dish of Laos, made from raw or cooked meat with herbs, spices and lime juice
- Pasta salad
- Potato salad
- Somen salad — Japanese somen noodles, garnish, and a vinegar-based sauce; served cold.
- Som tam — Thai salad made with raw papaya
- Tabouli - wheat bulgur, parsley, tomatoes, cucumber, lemon juice, oil, served cold
- Waldorfsalat — Äpfel, Sellerie, Walnüsse and a creamy dressing.
- Watergate salad — Pistazie Pudding, crushed Ananas, Marshmallows, Mandarinen and whipped cream.
Geschichte
In the Middle Ages, after a long winter of salted meats and pickled vegetables, people would be "salt-sick" and starving for spring greens. A pregnant wife's yearning for rapunzel growing in the garden next door inspired the fairy tale of Rapunzel. Popular history asserts that peasants ate more salads than lords, and were the healthier for it, but in fact salads, cooked and raw, included many ingredients that would be "gourmet" today: lovage, burnet, sorrel.
The diarist John Evelyn wrote a book on salads, Acetaria: A Discourse on Sallets (published in 1699), that describes the new salad greens coming out of Italy (like "sellery" (celery)) and the Netherlands.