Home on the Range: American Flatbread's Evolution Vinaigrette

For all of its 40 years, American Flatbread has stuck to a simple, streamlined menu of flatbreads and salad. The wood-fired pies that emerge from the restaurants’ earthen ovens may claim the glory, but Flatbread’s signature Evolution Salad has also earned many fervent fans.

The mix of greens tossed with housemade ginger-tamari vinaigrette and topped with shredded carrots, celery, pickled cabbage and toasted sesame seeds is a satisfying mix of crunchy, savory and sweet. It’s the kind of salad that makes you want to eat your veggies.

American Flatbread founder George Schenk told me that the vinaigrette evolved from a beef marinade he used when he was a cook at Tucker Hill Lodge in Waitsfield, where he and his wife launched their pizza company in 1985.

One of the vinaigrette’s secrets is a very 1980s ingredient — sweet-tart raspberry vinegar — that I couldn’t find locally, so I made it from scratch. It’s not hard at all but does take a couple of days’ worth of hands-off time. (See details below.) Balsamic vinegar will do in a pinch, but as Schenk would surely say, good food takes time.

American Flatbread Evolution Salad Ginger-Tamari Vinaigrette

Yield: About 2 cups

Ingredients

⅓ cup raspberry vinegar (see note below or substitute balsamic vinegar)
⅓ cup tamari soy sauce
⅓ cup freshly squeezed orange juice
3 tablespoons freshly grated ginger root
2 tablespoons finely minced shallot
1 tablespoon finely minced garlic
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
a good pinch of ground coriander
1 cup neutral oil, such as safflower
½ teaspoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons maple syrup

Directions

In a food processor or blender, combine vinegar, tamari, orange juice, ginger, shallot, garlic, red pepper flakes and coriander. Process until well blended.
With the machine running, add the oils and the maple syrup gradually until the vinaigrette is emulsified.

To make raspberry vinegar: Steep about 2 ½ ounces of crushed, fresh raspberries in 1/3 cup of white wine vinegar for a couple of days on the counter, covered. Stir occasionally. Push that mixture through a fine strainer into a small saucepan, and then add 2 ½ teaspoons of sugar. Simmer over medium heat just until the sugar dissolves. Cool and store in the fridge until you use it in this vinaigrette.