To get a taste of LA’s cultural and culinary heritage, look no further than Grand Central Market. Located in a historic building downtown, this 100-year-old marketplace is home to local vendors slinging everything from traditional street tacos to oozy breakfast sandwiches — and the new Grand Central Market Cookbook captures the best this LA landmark has to offer.
The salad recipe below comes from the new cookbook’s pages and couldn’t possibly be more LA. It’s cheeky name is a nod to our So Cal climate and makes the perfect foodie holiday gift — or will at least spark some timely and (somewhat) safe holiday table conversation…
California is America’s salad bowl, but drought is a fact of the California climate, and changes related to global warming have made the state’s annual rainfall even less predictable. Because lettuce is a thirsty crop, GCM produce vendor District Market came up with a “drought salad” to showcase vegetables that consume less water. Root vegetables, growing underground as they do, fit the bill, because they lose less water through evaporation than leafy lettuce. Baby spinach takes less water simply because it’s harvested sooner than mature spinach leaves.
Drought Salad
Ingredients:
½ cup apple cider vinegar
¼ cup apple cider
⅓ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
2 Tbsp pale honey
1 tsp kosher salt
½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
pinch of dried thyme
1 shallot, thinly sliced
1 garlic clove, lightly crushed
5 medium red or golden beets, peeled and julienned
3 medium carrots, grated
½ small jicama, julienned
2 cups canned or home-cooked black-eyed peas
7 cups baby spinach leaves
½ cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
½ cup crumbled chèvre
Directions:
Whisk together the vinegar, cider, olive oil, mustard, honey, salt, pepper and thyme in a small bowl. Add the shallot and garlic, and stir to combine. Let rest at room temperature for 30 minutes for the flavors to meld. Discard the clove of garlic before serving.
In a large serving bowl, toss together the beets, carrots, jicama, black-eyed peas, spinach, parsley and chèvre. Pour the dressing over top, and toss to coat.
Reprinted from THE GRAND CENTRAL MARKET COOKBOOK by Adele Yellin and Kevin West. Copyright (c) 2017 by Grand Central Market. Photographs copyright (c) 2017 by Johnny Autry. Published by Clarkson Potter, an imprint of Penguin Random House, LLC.
