Instructions: Composed salad. The very name is enough to kill your appetite, with visions of hoity-toity matrons sitting around after bridge eating sliced canned peaches artfully arranged over slivered iceberg lettuce with cream cheese rosettes.

To most people, composed salads - those in which ingredients are artfully arranged - are antiques from the old-fashioned school of cooking that was concerned more with the way dishes looked than how they tasted. Along with fluted mushrooms and chaud-froid, they are almost too easy to ridicule.

But the definition of composed salad has changed. Although presentation is still important, the fashion today is for salads that look like food, not like a painstakingly arranged still-life.

Like much of classical cuisine, when stripped to the barest components, there is good, sensible food behind the stilted prettiness in composed salads.

With good cooks, decoration has never been the dishs main virtue. Escoffier spoke out against over-decoration of the dish in The Escoffier Cook Book, writing, The simplest form of serving is the best, and fancifulness should not be indulged in.
So forget about separating the meat, vegetables and greens into little decorative piles. Arrange them in a more modern, natural way, and youve got something delicious that is also beautiful without being contrived.

Even better, what youve got is dinner. Because when you get down to it, a composed salad is the perfect meal for a hot summer night.

Youre probably already making composed salads without even thinking about it. Ever slice ripe tomatoes and dripping fresh mozzarella, decorate it with dark green fresh basil, and then serve it with good olive oil and a loaf of crusty bread?

Thats a very basic example. How about tossing together canned white beans and tuna? Or thinly sliced steak and room-temperature steamed potatoes, bound with a mustardy vinaigrette?

Where composition may once have referred to how the salad was arranged, it now has more to do with flavor and the interplay of taste and texture. Today, were more likely to be impressed by the way crisp red coins of radishes balance creamy, dark orange egg yolks and thin slices of char-grilled steak.

What may be even more impressive is the way these salads adapt to what you already have in the pantry and refrigerator.

Canned white or garbanzo beans, tuna and smoked salmon, leftover grilled chicken or steak and the vegetables from a big Sunday dinner. All you need is some sturdy greens, a good dressing and a few condiments.

Through summer, try to keep at least one head of watercress, frisee, radicchio or curly endive on hand. These greens have the strength - both in structure and flavor - to match up to almost anything you can throw in the bowl.

Since these salads are served at room temperature, its best to use meat that is fairly lean. Make sure the meat and all the vegetables are cut into bite-size pieces, preferably of a similar size. These salads are about balanced combinations of flavors: Dont let any one ingredient dominate.

The dressing is the unifying factor for composed salads. For lighter combinations, such as tuna and garbanzo beans, a simple mixture of olive oil and lemon juice is all thats needed. As the ingredients get heavier and bolder, so should the dressing. Add a little Dijon mustard to the vinaigrette for a salad made with grilled beef, for instance.

Whichever dressing you choose, use just enough to season the salad and give it cohesiveness; dont overdo it. A good rule of thumb is to add half the dressing and toss well, then add the rest a tablespoon at a time. You can always pass more dressing at the table.

Depending on the occasion, these salads can be served on individual plates or mounded in a platter. Some decoration is necessary, but keep it natural.

Obviously, you wouldnt want to trust the way your dinner looks to the random effects of gravity. But neither should you labor over the appearance. After all, its a meal, not a mosaic.

If you would like to email yourself the recipe for later use, or share the recipe with your friends or family, enter the email addresses below and this recipe will be emailed to you and others as well.