Salad Days: Main Course Salads for a First Class Meal [Hardcover]

Marcel Desaulniers (Author), Peter Johansky (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1998

This selection of main-dish salads expands the idea of what salads should be to full meals combining a variety of flavours. Using a selection of greens, vegetables, grains, pasta and meat, a range of innovative meals are presented with dressings.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Anytime El Nino has the price of a head of lettuce breaking the $2 barrier, it's time to march to the cookbook shelf for inspiration. Reaching for Salad Days is well in order, for Marcel Desaulniers has produced an elegant little book that gives salad a refreshing spin.

A lovely chapter on greens leads the book, and Desaulniers follows right along with chapters on beans, grains, and fruits. But these are only the baseline ingredients, the bedrock on which a grand, dinner salad might be built. This book is all about building, about mixing and matching. One is tempted to believe that Desaulniers played with paper dolls as a child, for the same theory is at work: Once the outfits are cut out, it's simply a matter of assembling the final production according to one's taste.

Take, for example, the salad of sliced beets, curly endive, red bliss potato salad, honey mustard roasted walnuts, and meaux mustard vinaigrette. There are four separate recipes at work here, which might seem intimidating at first. But it's all really quite short and sweet. A minimum of muss and fuss, and then on to the assemblage.

But here's the kicker, having given you the recipe for the baseline assembled salad, Desaulniers gives the reader two ways to stretch, in this case with recipes for walnut-crusted stripped bass on the one hand, and honey duck stir-fry on the other. By adding either ingredient, what started as an elegant dinner salad changes into an entrée salad. A main course.

Desaulniers' primary and obvious point of concern is the home cook. He works up his recipes in a home kitchen, with home kitchen equipment and appliances. He writes clear and encouraging recipes, lists all the tools a cook will need, and slathers on the insider tips. The net effect of all this is to bring the home cook right into the heart of real cooking. And there's a whole world of difference between that and following a recipe. --Schuyler Ingle

From Library Journal

Desaulniers, executive chef of The Trellis Restaurant in Williamsburg, VA, is the prolific author of six other cookbooks, three of which feature fabulous desserts. In fact, his irresistible Death by Chocolate Cookies (LJ 12/97) was published just a few months ago, and perhaps that's partly why Salad Days doesn't seem to convey the same enthusiasm as the more indulgent dessert books. It includes 30 master salad recipes, grouped under Greens, Beans, Grains, and Fruits, with two variations for each; the basic recipes are vegetarian, the variations add meat, fish, or poultry. The recipes are clearly written, as always, but many of them are on the complicated side, and the tone of the lengthy chef's notes sometimes seems forced. Nevertheless, Desaulniers (who has had several TV cooking series) and his books are popular, and most collections will want to consider his latest.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (May 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 068482261X
• ISBN-13: 978-0684822617
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #556,700 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #72 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Vegetables & Vegetarian > Salads

More About the Author

Marcel Desaulniers is the executive chef and owner of the Trellis Restaurant in Williamsburg, Virginia. A 1965 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Marcel has received several national awards, including Food and Wine magazine's Honor Roll of American Chefs, Who's Who of Food & Beverage in America, the prestigious Ivy Award from Restaurants and Institutions, the 1993 James Beard Award for Best Chef Mid-Atlantic States, the highly coveted Silver Plate award from the International Foodservice Manufacturers Association, and in 1999 the James Beard Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef in America.

Marcel's first cookbook, THE TRELLIS COOKBOOK, was published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 1988. The paperback version, including 20 new recipes, was published in January 1992 by Simon & Schuster. DEATH BY CHOCOLATE, Desaulniers' second cookbook, published by Rizzoli, New York in September 1992, has sold more than 300,000 copies worldwide. In 1993, DEATH BY CHOCOLATE won the James Beard Best Baking and Desserts Cookbook Award. Marcel's television cooking series, "Death by Chocolate," based on his book premiered in September 1993 on The Learning Channel.

In 1994, Simon & Schuster released Marcel's third book, THE BURGER MEISTERS. In 1995 THE BURGER MEISTERS won the James Beard Best Single Subject Cookbook Award. His cooking series, "The Burger Meister," premiered on The Learning Channel in September 1994. Marcel's fourth book, DESSERTS TO DIE FOR, was published by Simon & Schuster in November 1995, and in April 1996 the book was awarded the Julia Child Cookbook Award for Bread, Other Baking and Sweets category as well as the Cook's Choice Award. His fifth book, AN ALPHABET OF SWEETS, was published by Rizzoli, New York in October 1996. A sixth book, DEATH BY CHOCOLATE COOKIES, was published by Simon & Schuster in November of 1997. The seventh cookbook, SALAD DAYS, was published by Simon & Schuster in the Spring of 1998. DEATH BY CHOCOLATE CAKES, was published by William Morrow, New York in September 2000, and was a 2001 IACP Cookbook Award Finalist. Marcel's most recent book, CELEBRATE WITH CHOCOLATE, was published by William Morrow, New York in October 2002 and was the winner of the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards, Best Chocolate Book for 2002. Foreign editions of his books have been published in France, Great Britain, Holland, Australia, Mexico, and Canada. Marcel next cookbook, DREAMING OF A CHOCOLATE CHRISTMAS, will be published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., in October of 2007.

Marcel opened The Trellis Restaurant in 1980, along with partner John Curtis. In July 1988, Marcel was inducted into the American Academy of Chefs, the honor society of the American Culinary Federation. He is past president and chairman of the board of the Virginia Chefs Association, a past member of The Board of Directors of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, and is trustee emeritus of The Board of Trustees for the Culinary Institute of America.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good for rainy-day cooking, NOT for beginners, April 11, 2003

By 

Joseph Johnson (St. Petersburg, FL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Salad Days: Main Course Salads for a First Class Meal (Hardcover)

Marcel Desaulniers, author of some of the most wickedly good dessert cookbooks in my cupboard, releases a cookbook full of more virtuous dishes, probably for those of us who've indulged one time too many in his myriad chocolate desserts.

One thing I particularly like about this book is the serving sizes. Unlike many cookbooks, where the number of servings listed is sometimes (or usually) optimistic, when a recipe in THIS book lists 4 servings, it means 4 VERY generous servings. Also, love or hate the ingredients that go into the salads, all of them turn out looking so delicious that it's (ironically) almost a shame to eat them.

Be warned, however - I would NOT recommend this cookbook to beginners. It can take several hours to prepare one of these salads. When I purchased it, I was expecting dozens of recipes for salads consisting of 6 or 7 ingredients, tops, which you can toss together and serve with a dressing. Wrong. Many of these salad recipes are actually 2 to 4 small recipes combined into one dish (even more if you decide to compliment the salad with the extra "variation" recipes), and the number of different ingredients required for these recipes easily goes from 12-15. Also, many of these ingredients are not things casual cooks will have lying around the house (I have no idea where to find Moutarde de Meaux Pommery mustard), so you have to specifically be in the mood to make a certain salad - you can't just whip one of them together right when you come home from work. Rainy weekends are ideal for many of these recipes.

One thing that I don't believe this book tells you (I may be mistaken), but which many people should guess anyway, is that all of the pasta recipes in this book can easily be substituted with the plain dry kind you buy in supermarkets. If the pasta is flavored (green onion fettucini, for example), you can simply add a bit of the herb/vegetable that was to go in the pasta directly into the salad.

One minor quibble with this book is that compared to other books by this author, there doesn't seem to be as many recipes, perhaps because due to the fact that each salad recipe is composed of several smaller recipes. Most of these are quite good, and the dressing recipes can obviously be made on their own for every day salads. Also, a grilled lemon chicken breast recipe accompanying one of the pasta salad recipes makes an outstanding ciabatta sandwich. In the end, the recipe(s) that make up one salad can often be made on their own for any number of occasions, which is a major plus.

Overall, the salad recipes as a whole are too difficult to make for me to recommend it to beginners, but cooking enthusiasts and/or people looking for substantial, nutritious meals should definitely give it a whirl!

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very satisfying, beautiful meals, July 16, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Salad Days: Main Course Salads for a First Class Meal (Hardcover)

The author of this cookbook is a distance runner and a genuine lover of food. Although we think of him primarily for his fabulous chocolate recipes, he deserves stars for this salad collection. These are truly satisfying and beautiful meals. There are photographs to show you how to compose the salad on the plate: how about greens with tomatoes, pine nuts, herbs, and a honey roasted breast of duck? All of the recipes have a vegetarian version, and a choice of a couple of seafood, poultry, or meat adornments. The three recipes I've made have all been delicious, hearty enough to satisfy physically active men, and well received in both versions. There are also some good reminders for all levels of cooking expertise: encouragement to improvise and try variations on salad dressing and salad ingredients, encouragement to try room temperature for some components. (Haven't we all been served an overly chilled salad on a cold clammy plate? Tasteless.) There are mul! ! tiple steps for preparation and assembly. You are told which ones can be done ahead. It would be a little too frantic to come home at 6:00 pm and expect to just quickly toss these salads together. But there is help for planning. With some preparation, it can mean that there is easy assembly at serving time. This cookbook helped me solve the vegan/vegetarian/food allergy and just plan persnickity food preferances of some of the guests at my house. More importantly, there was some range for intelligence and creativity on the part of the cook. This is a good investment.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars OVER MY HEAD !!!!!, January 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Salad Days: Main Course Salads for a First Class Meal (Hardcover)

I am interested in quick, easy salads, but these were too complicated for a novice cook such as myself. And after a long day at work in the emergency room of a major city hospital, I don't have time for the exacting and time consuming prep work. I cook to relieve stress, not add to my own. Even the dull quality of the photographs, didn't enhance my desire to make any of the salads. I have the chef's cookie AND chocolate book and were were PLEASED with those, thats why I purchased the salad book, unfortuneatly, I was very disappointed. Maybe I'm just a baker at heart. I guess I'll stick to chocolate as a major food group.