Rotisserie Chicken and the Sweet-Savory Rule

I need to start this post off with a small whinge; a whinge about the weather (it's cold and rainy again) and about how tired I am today.  I'd like to be able to blame the tiredness on the lack of sunshine and the new commute that requires getting up an hour and a half earlier than I used to. But really it's due to the sudden burst of creativity I've been experiencing. I got a new sewing machine as a belated birthday present from Bob and Dad and now all I want to do is stay up late sewing things. (I might eventually get good enough at sewing things to be able to show those things to the bloggy world, but for now, let's just keep it at I'm staying up too late and so I'm tired.)

Due to this unexplained tiredness and a trip to NYC (stay tuned for culinary adventures from the Big Apple) super bright and early tomorrow morning I just couldn't face dinner. So the Hubs grabbed a rotisserie chicken, some lettuce, and bread on his way home from taking the dogs to the kennel this morning.  This certainly isn't the most creative dinner I've ever produced, but I thought that it would be post-worthy in a self-confessional-rotisserie-chicken-plugging kind of way.  And it gives me a chance to talk about vinaigrette while further explaining my sweet-savory  rule.

I've briefly mentioned my sweet-savory rule before, but it really deserves a little more discussion.  When I was in high school and college I spent most of my summers racing sailboats.  One year I happened to be crewing for the man who was the Rules Steward at the yacht club. He told me that  all rules disputes come down to the port-starboard rule (in that the boat on the starboard tack has the right of way over a boat on the port tack).  This rule wouldn't have been burned so clearly in my mind if we hadn't been in pre-race maneuvers one day when we found ourselves (on the port tack) heading directly for a boat (on the starboard tack).  It seemed that the Rule Steward momentarily forgot the port-starboard rule because we ran right into the on coming boat, taking out their mast.  It was mortifying.  Now I like to think of the port-starboard rule as being very similar, in importance, to the sweet-savory rule (that all savory food is improved with a little sweetness and vice versa).  Because I know first-hand what happens when you neglect your cardinal rule.

The sweet-savory rule, in the context of a vinagrette, means adding just a touch of sweetness to a dressing (unless you prefer consuming your vinegar straight from the bottle).  The most basic of dressings (lemon juice, oilve oil, and parmesan) has a low enough acidity that it can squeak by without the addition of sweetness, particularly if your parmesan is on the sweeter side or the things you are dressing have some sweetness.  On the other had, the dressing I made tonight to go with the chicken, green beans and tomatoes was a blasamic dijon based vinagrette and it is improved by some sweetness (just a tiny bit).  I usually combine the balsamic vinegar, oilive oil and dijon mustard with about 5 drops of maple syrup or honey.  Just that little bit of sweetness is enough to temper the bite of the dijon and vinegar without losing any of the pleasant acidity.  Oh and one last salad trick, you can't tell what you dressing tastes like on it's own.  So if you're tasting it for balance dip a piece of lettuce (whatever you're using to compose the salad) into the vinagrette and taste it that way.  Bon Appetit!

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