Toni Tipton-Martin’s Layered Garden Salad

We’ve long been fond of seven-layer salad, and Toni Tipton-Martin’s version from Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking, from which this is adapted, is one of our favorites ever.

(We reviewed the book in June, 2020.)

It’s the ideal picnic dish, as it’s designed to travel well and be tossed on arrival. We especially love its garlic and herb dressing, which we’ll be using on all kinds of salads Tipton-Martin says it will remind you of bottled ranch dressing, “only better,” and she’s right. It can also be served as a dip; just add equal amounts of mayo and sour cream, a tablespoon at a time, until it’s as thick as you’d like it.

In case you’re new to boiling eggs, use an egg piercer or clean thumbtack to pierce a hole in the large end of each egg. Place the eggs in a small saucepan, cover with cold water, bring to a boil, then immediately cover the pan and remove from heat. Let sit in the hot water for 9 or 10 minutes, depending on how hard you like your yolk. Run under cold water to stop the cooking, then peel the eggs.

Serves 6.

Ingredients

1 cup sliced cucumber (about one medium cucumber)

1 large tomato, cut into eighths

5 radishes, sliced

1/4 cup sliced red onion

1 celery stalk, sliced

1/4 cup shredded carrots

2 hard-boiled eggs, sliced

1 cup sweet green peas, blanched and chilled, or thawed frozen peas

7 cups mixed chopped greens (such as romaine lettuce, endive, leaf lettuce and watercress)

1 tablespoon roughly chopped fresh parsley

Garlic and Herb Dressing (recipe follows)

Instructions

In a large salad bowl, layer the cucumber, tomatoes, radishes, red onion, celery, carrots, egg slices, peas, greens and parsley. Top with the garlic and herb dressing. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to serve. Toss before serving.

Garlic and Herb Dressing

Makes 3/4 cup.

Ingredients

1/4 cup mayonnaise

1/4 cup sour cream

3 tablespoons buttermilk

1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon tarragon vinegar (or 1 teaspoon chopped tarragon leaves and 1/2 teaspoon red wine vinegar)

1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives

1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley

1 1/2 teaspoons minced fresh dill

1 small clove garlic, minced

1/8 teaspoon onion powder

1/8 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon celery salt

1/2 teaspoon salt

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Instructions

In a small bowl or jar with a tight-fitting lid, whisk or shake together the mayonnaise, sour cream, buttermilk, lemon juice, tarragon vinegar (or red wine vinegar plus tarragon), chives, parsley, dil, garlic, onion powder, garlic powder, celery salt, salt and black pepper. Store in the refrigerator tightly covered. Shake well before using.

Recipe notes

The amount of salad greens originally called for was 8 cups; we reduced it to 7, as the salad was not fitting in our fairly large salad bowl. We have also increased the hard-boiled egg from one to two eggs, so everyone’s more likely to get at least a slice. Tipton-Martin calls for 1 cup sweet green peas, blanched or chilled; we have added an option to use thawed frozen peas.

For the dressing, we have also increased the amount of minced garlic from 1/4 teaspoon (which we found pretty minute for a dressing with “garlic” in its name) to the more practical one small clove. Where it calls for tarragon vinegar; we added a possible substitution of red wine vinegar plus fresh tarragon. Finally, we changed onion salt and celery salt to the more readily available garlic powder and onion powder, and increased the salt accordingly.