Here’s to breaking the mystery behind salad dressings! Just the other night, I was wondering if I could pull off making an oil dressing I can use on my pasta and salads. Rather than going to the store and spending a good $3.00 on a small 8oz. bottle of Wish Bone dressing with the same predictable flavors, I thought I would get creative in the kitchen and save money. This just may be the beginning of a beautiful thing.

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups of vegetable oil

1 tsp. of minced garlic

½ tsp. of cayenne pepper

¼ tsp. of cilantro paste

1 ½ tsp. salt to taste

Directions:

Add all spices to the bottom of a small pot. Have the lid of a pot ready before turning the heat on. Then add your 1 ½ cups of vegetable oil. Ignite the burners and allow the mixture to sit on low heat – occasionally stirring. This is when the saying, “A watched pot never boils.” is thrown out of the window. Your objective here is to wait until your mixture comes to a light simmer. Once you start to see small bubbles appear on the sides of the small pot, begin to stir more frequently. More specifically, stir the pot in a “figure 8” motion every time the small bubbles appear five to ten times. Your mixture should not stay on a light simmer any longer than that. Turn the heat off and place the lid on the pot right away and let your infusion steep for 20 minutes. All of the ingredients will begin to combine together and the oil dressing will cool off enough for you to pour it into an air tight container. A good example of an air tight container would be a mason jar or any container that has a rubber rim to seal in the freshness. Store this at room temperature in a pantry or cabinet. You don’t want to store it at a cool temperature unless you want to create a “butter compound” mix.

As always, thank you for reading and enjoy this recipe on your dishes.