The Best Green Salad in the World
'For the last three years, I’ve been obsessed with a green salad.
Allow me to explain exactly how out of character this is: very! I love pasta, buttery garlic bread and deeply caramelized roasted vegetables. I love roast chicken, juicy summer tomatoes and carrot cake slathered with tangy cream-cheese frosting. I love bitter broccoli rabe tossed with Calabrian chiles and hidden under a mountain of snowy shaved Parmesan. I do not, however, typically feel deeply passionate about green salad. Sure, I eat it dutifully when it’s on the table — mostly so I can enjoy a brief sense of smug appreciation of my own virtue — but obsession is not my natural response to roughage.
Yet every time I’m in New York, I visit Via Carota, the charming West Village restaurant run by the partners Jody Williams and Rita Sodi — sometimes twice in a single day — just to order the insalata verde. For three years I’ve been eating this salad, and bite by bite, trying to decipher what makes it so unbelievably, mouth-smackingly perfect. The menu description gives little away: “leafy greens in sherry vinaigrette.” A visual inspection of the dish reveals only leaves of endive, butter lettuce, frisée and watercress all piled as high as gravity will allow, topped by a drizzle of dressing studded generously with shallots and mustard seeds. About a year into my obsession, an equally bedeviled friend suggested that there might be sugar in the vinaigrette. Thinking of the Mexican cook I’d met who sneaks a little Knorr seasoning into every salsa and salad dressing, I wondered: Maybe there was a tiny, secret pinch of MSG too? What else, besides such concessions to the dark arts, could make a green salad so appealing?
And then it occurred to me that I could just ask. I wrote to Williams, prepared to beg for the recipe, but she replied swiftly with a tidy typed copy of it. Quickly scanning the ingredient list, I was surprised: No sugar or MSG was included, but curiously, a tablespoon of warm water was, along with the option to add a little bit of honey. I briefly wondered if Williams had sent me a grandma-style recipe, with the real secret ingredient sneakily omitted.
It wasn’t until I stepped into the kitchen to test the recipe that I realized that all the secrets of this otherworldly salad lay in the graceful, unlikely application of a flavorless one: water — and not just that tablespoon. . .
Finally, and perhaps most surprising, Williams adds a spoonful of warm water to the vinaigrette. “We add warm water to make it more palatable,” she explained. “Pure vinegar is just too strong — it assaults the taste buds. We want a salad dressing so savory and delicious that you can eat spoonfuls of it. We want you to be able to drink it!” As a cook, I always push for the most intense flavors, so I’ve always thought of water as the enemy of vinaigrette — why would I want to dilute flavor? And yet, Williams is right; I do want to drink this dressing!'>>>
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/08/magazine/best-green-salad-recipe.html?
YAY, Captured the recipe!
2 heads butter lettuce, such as Boston or bibb
1 romaine heart
1 large Belgian endive
1 bunch watercress
½ small head frisée
FOR THE DRESSING:
1 large shallot, minced
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon aged sherry vinegar, plus additional, as needed
1 tablespoon warm water
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 ½ teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 ½ teaspoons whole-grain mustard
1 ½ teaspoons honey (optional)
2 sprigs thyme, washed and stripped
1 large clove garlic, finely grated
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
PREPARATION
Wash the greens: Fill a sink or large basin with tepid water. Remove any wilted or damaged leaves from the butter lettuce, romaine and endive. Trim each head at the root to release whole leaves. Leave butter-lettuce leaves whole, but halve large leaves of romaine and endive on the bias, then drop into water. Trim and discard any roots and long stems off watercress, and drop remaining leaves and tender stems into water. Trim and discard dark green outer leaves and tops from frisée until only light green and white parts remain. Trim at the root to release leaves, and drop into water. Swirl greens in water, then drain. Wash twice more in cool, then cold, water, then transfer to a salad spinner to dry. Gently wrap in clean dish towels, and set aside.
Place the shallot in a fine-mesh strainer, and quickly rinse with cold water. Allow to drain, then place in a medium bowl, and add vinegar and warm water. Allow to sit for 2 minutes, then whisk in oil, mustards, honey (if using), thyme, garlic and a large pinch of salt. Taste, and adjust salt and vinegar as needed.
To serve, gently pile a generous handful of greens into a serving bowl, then sprinkle with salt, pepper and a generous drizzle of dressing. Continue with another handful of salad and more seasoning and dressing, repeating until you have a glorious, gravity-defying mound of salad. Top with a final drizzle of dressing, and serve immediately.
Wrap remaining greens in an airtight container or plastic bag and refrigerate for up to 3 days. Cover and refrigerate remaining dressing for up to 3 days.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Made it really high contrast between the white cheese and the very dark beets, and sort of washed all of the details out. The colours were much nicer in person 
when claims of no sugar are made but honey, agave, maple syrup are deemed OK or somehow NOT sugar 
