Tom Parker Bowles: 'Without dressing, salad is little more than an incongruous jumble of clueless vegetation'

There was once a French nobleman by the name of the Marquis d’Albignac. Impoverished by the Revolution, he fled Paris for London and one day found himself in a tavern renowned for roasting the finest beef in town. As he was polishing off his superlative piece of sirloin, a well-bred young man approached, and asked whether he was French. ‘Mais oui,’ he replied. ‘Well, then,’ came back the Young Buck, ‘we hear that your country excels in the art of making salads. Would you be so kind as to make us a dressing?’

After a little hesitation, the Marquis agreed, mixing his vinegar and oil with expert élan. The dressing was a resounding success, the gentleman took his address and he was tipped most generously for his efforts. A few days later, the Marquis was summoned to dress a salad in one of London’s grandest houses. Stocking up on ingredients, he arrived on time and whipped up another stirring symphony, which was met with an even more rapturous response — as well as an even more lavish tip.

From that moment on, D’Albignac became known as the ‘fashionable salad dresser’, quickly becoming the darling of London’s beau monde. Such was his renown that he struggled to keep up with demand, racing from one mansion to another in a brand-new Brougham carriage, specially fitted with a bespoke mahogany work box. This contained oils of every hue and flavour, rare vinegars, caviar, truffles, ketchup, meat essence, egg yolks and everything else needed to work his magical melanges.

Soon, his clients begged him for their own versions of his box. He duly obliged, knocking them out by the hundred, and quickly amassed a small fortune. He returned to France a rich man, retiring to a small country estate in Limousin — which goes to show that salad dressings are always a serious business.

A dressing can be as simple as a sprinkle of salt and a dribble of oil — the sweetest summer tomatoes, picked warm from the vine, need nothing more — or as fiendishly, fantastically complex as a Diophantine equation.

You’ll find them in every culture, made with oil and vinegar, sour cream and mayonnaise, soy sauce, tahini, lime juice and sesame. They use pine nuts and cheese, spices and herbs, buttermilk, ketchup, anchovies and eggs. Without dressing, salad is little more than an incongruous jumble of clueless vegetation, a listless rabble of gormless green — the dressing’s job is to unite. Like a brilliant conductor, great dressings draw together dissonant noises into one harmonious whole.

Classic vinaigrette

As ancient a combination as bread and olives, the alchemical emulsion that the French call ‘vinaigrette’ is perhaps the most classic and best known of salad dressings. I prefer one part vinegar (red or white wine are the French classics, although sherry, balsamic and apple all have their fans) to four parts oil.

I know, I know, many recipes recommend three to one, but dressings are an intensely personal thing. One man’s mellow is another’s overbearing. Sometimes, I feel an urge for walnut oil, others, a peppery Tuscan Laudemio Frescobaldi or something fresh and fruity from Provence.

I use what is good and close to hand — the joy of vinaigrette lies in the endless variations on a theme and the final call is yours. Always start by mixing the vinegar and salt, then add your flavourings (mustard, perhaps, or minced garlic). Pour the oil in a slow stream, mixing or whisking all the time. Keep tasting.

This will keep in the fridge for up to a week, although anything involving fresh herbs and garlic is best used within three days. When dressing the leaves, use the biggest salad bowl you can find (preferably wooden) and mix with your hands (or salad servers if you must) at the last possible moment before eating. You want enough to ensure each leaf glistens like a Greek warrior, but not so much that they drown. Eat sharpish.

Spring

Wild-garlic vinaigrette is the very essence of spring and is as good on crisp endive as it is on cold asparagus.

Ingredients (enough for two big salads)

• 1tbspn white-wine vinegar
• Big pinch of salt
• Hearty screw of fresh black pepper
• 1tspn Colman’s English Mustard powder
• 4tbspn good olive oil (I like something soft and easy, such as Perelló Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Brindisa)
• Handful of wild-garlic leaves, roughly chopped

Method

Mix vinegar, salt, pepper and mustard in a small bowl or clean jam jar with lid.

Add the olive oil in a gentle trickle, mixing as you go. Or simply put all the ingredients into a clean jam jar, screw on the lid and shake.

Mix in chopped wild garlic and serve.

Summer

South-East Asian dressings are all about punch, acidity and vim, usually involving some combination of fish sauce, lime juice, sugar and chilli. One of my very favourites is the prik nam pla used to dress a Laotian larb, or minced meat salad.

Just combine equal amounts of fish sauce and fresh lime juice and throw in as many bird’s eye chillies as you dare.

Nuoc mam cho goi (fish sauce for salad)

The recipe below comes from a brilliant book called Vietnam: The Cookbook by Anaïs Ca Dao Van Manen. It’s rather more mellow and works wonders on noodle salads with prawns and fresh trout. Better still, it can be easily transported in a bottle to Ascot and Glyndebourne, where it adds instant zing.

Ingredients (enough for two big salads)

• 35g garlic, finely minced (I use a fine Microplane grater)
• 1 long red chilli, finely sliced (or 2 bird’s eye chillies, for more of a kick)
• 85ml fresh lime juice (about 3 limes)
• 75g white sugar
• 65ml fish sauce

Methos

Mix garlic and chilli with fish sauce in a small bowl. Add the sugar and lime juice and stir until the sugar is completely dissolved.

Autumn

As nights draw in, all thoughts turn to comfort, but it’s not quite time to bid summer adieu, hence an iceberg wedge salad with blue-cheese dressing, where the pert and crisp meet the creamily soothing.

With the obvious exception of that Tijuana-born beauty, the Caesar salad, I have little time for creamy dressings and I find the popularity (in the US, at least) of ranch and thousand-island dressings baffling. Made properly, they have their place, I suppose, but too often, they’re a cloyingly gloopy mess, bound together with cheap emulsifiers and second-rate ingredients.

Iceberg wedge salad

This is an American classic, from food writer Marion Cunningham in Saveur Cooks: Authentic American.

Ingredients (serves 2-4)

• 1 head iceberg lettuce
• 120ml sour cream
• 120ml mayonnaise
• 2 spring onions, minced
• 2–3tbspn lemon juice
• 120g of mildish, creamy blue cheese (Dorset Blue Vinny is ideal)
• Freshly ground black pepper

Method

To make the salad, remove the core from the iceberg lettuce by banging the core end sharply on a counter. Then, grab the core, twist and pull. It will separate cleanly. Plunge the cored head of iceberg forcefully into a sinkful of cold water. Drain, wrap in a towel, and refrigerate overnight.

Combine the sour cream, mayonnaise, spring onions and lemon juice in a bowl and mix well. Stir in the cheese, cover with plastic wrap, then refrigerate for at least four hours.

To serve, cut the lettuce into four large wedges, spoon the dressing over it and season generously with pepper.

Winter

It’s cold, it’s dark and you’re looking for something with a little more heft. Pasta salad, I hear you cry. Get thee away, Satan. The only place for a pasta salad is the compost heap. Beans? Well, that’s a whole different matter, tumbled with masses of herbs and chillies, in a sharp, lemon-heavy dressing. Bliss.

Better still, is the recipe here, made with bacon fat. I stumbled across it somewhere down in the Deep South of America, a place not exactly known for the delicacy of its salads. The hot dressing wilts the leaves, hence the name ‘killed’. This recipe comes from my book Let’s Eat Meat.

Killed salad

Ingredients (serves 4)

For the salad

• 8 rashers of smoked streaky bacon
• 2–3 romaine lettuce hearts, pulled apart
• 3 tomatoes, each cut into 6 wedges
• ½ red onion, thinly sliced

For the bacon vinaigrette

• 2tbspn white-wine vinegar
• 1tbspn runny honey
• Big pinch of mustard powder
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• About 6tbspn extra virgin olive oil

Method

Fry the bacon in a heavy-bottomed pan over a medium heat until crisp, then drain on kitchen paper, pour off the fat and reserve for the dressing. Crumble the bacon.

To make the vinaigrette, heat the vinegar, honey, mustard and salt and pepper in a small pan until warm, then whisk in the reserved bacon fat and enough olive oil to make up to 100ml/3½fl oz, until smooth and emulsified.

Arrange the lettuce leaves in a bowl, add the tomatoes and red onion, sprinkle with the bacon, then pour over the hot dressing. The leaves should wilt. Eat immediately.

This feature originally appeared in the August 5, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.