A composed salad (salade composée in French) is not tossed. Rather, the dish is brought to the table with the ingredients arranged separately (and artistically) on individual serving plates, with a ramekin of dressing. The diner can take a forkful of whatever ingredients he or she wishes.

In this recipe from Cookie and Kate for Avocados From Mexico, the composed salad is prepared in a family-size bowl. It can be tossed at the table, or diners can pick and choose their ingredients.

12 INGREDIENTS TO ADD TO A COMPOSED SALAD

In addition to the lettuce(s) of choice, add:

Bring a composed salad to the table. Photo courtesy Cookie and Kate | Avocados From Mexico.

 
The taco salad in the photo adds a mound of guacamole in the middle.

What‘s your favorite salad combination?
 
FIND MORE DELICIOUS SALAD RECIPES.

This is not your mother’s (or grandmother’s) pressure cooker. Totally safe and user-friendly, there’s no scary hissing or rattling. It’s a must-have appliance for any busy person.

A pressure cooker does the opposite of a slow cooker. Instead of long, slow cooking, pressure cooking is short and fast. You can cook high-fiber, low-fat foods in record time, preserving vitamins and essential nutrients. Recipes that normally take four hours are ready in 45 minutes.

And pressure cooking creates a greener kitchen, since faster cooking means less fuel burned.

And when it’s too darn hot to stand over a stove, there’s no checking up on your recipe as it cooks. Just turn on the heat and come back to take the pot off the stove.

We use a Kuhn Rikon pressure cooker. It’s not inexpensive, but when the food emerges with so little trouble, moist and delicious, we’d be happy to pay double. Almost.

Check out our article on pressure cooking.

If you don’t want to go into baking overdrive, you can surprise your guests with just a spoon or a fork. You can buy the cookie cutters online:

 
You can make the cookies to serve with anything, from ice cream to oversize cups of coffee, tea or hot chocolate. The cookies are five inches long.
 
 
CRÈME CARAMEL RECIPE

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. PREHEAT oven to 325°F with a rack in the middle. Place ramekins in a roasting pan and set aside.

2. COMBINE the turbinado sugar in a stainless steel sauce pan with the water. Swirl pan to blend; heat over medium until a clear syrup forms. When the sugar is completely dissolved, raise the heat until the caramel darkens slightly to an amber color.

[2] Classic crème caramel (French), also called flan (Spanish—photo © Le Coq Rico | New York City [now closed]).

3. WHISK the eggs, granulated sugar and salt in a bowl. In a medium sauce pan over medium heat, bring the milk to a gentle simmer. Add the vanilla and pour it slowly over the egg-sugar mixture, whisking to blend. Distribute the custard evenly among ramekins.

4. ADD at least 1-1/2 inches of water to the bottom of the roasting pan (this creates a water bath or bain-marie). Place the roasting pan on the middle rack of the oven and bake until they are firm in the center, 45 to 55 minutes. Cool for 30 minutes and refrigerate until ready to serve.

5. RUN run a knife around the top edge of each ramekin and turn the ramekin upside down on a plate. When you unmold, the caramel at the bottom of the ramekin becomes the sauce on top of the custard, running down the sides and pooling on the plate.

NOTE: The pastry chef at the Chocolate Lab did not use ramekins with the caramel at the bottom. Instead, as you can see in the photo above, the crème caramel was baked in bowls with the caramel on top, and was served in the bowl in which it was baked. You can do the same.
 

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CRÈME CARAMEL, CARAMEL CUSTARD & FLAN?

Flan is the Spanish name for crème caramel, the lightest of the classic French custards. Caramel syrup is poured into the mold or ramekin before adding the custard base.

After the custard is baked, it is unmolded, leaving the caramel sauce on top and pooling around it. In caramel custard, caramelized sugar is mixed into the custard prior to baking.

See the different types of custard in our Custard Glossary.