Pulperia Salad

During my stay in Uruguay last winter, I was introduced to the most amazing restaurant - Pulperia. It's a restaurant of the parilla (grill) tradition, which is key to Uruguayan culture.  It's located right around the corner from my friend S.'s apartment, where I stayed while I was in Montevideo. We spent quite a few nights there, hanging out at the outdoor tables, ordering more and more food, and going through caraffes of the house red wine.

Ranching is huge in Uruguay - all beef cattle are grazed on pasture and factory farming/feedlots aren't used. Beef is cooked on wood fired grills and all kinds of weird cow parts are cooked. All in all, Pulperia is a very simple looking restaurant that serves some of the best meat in the world. No point in even posting the recipes because the quality of the beef broadly available in the US doesn't even come close.... one of the reasons I suspended my vegetarianism while I was there!

The sides were also fantastic - grilled provolone wedges, fries, sweet potatoes, bread, chimichurri sauce, and a great green salad. With help of S., we've obtained the recipe for the salad. Simple but surprisingly delicious.

Pulperia Green Salad

• Thinly slice 1 white onion. Marinate with ~1/4c lemon juice, ~1/4c EVOO, ~2T white wine or red wine vinegar, ~1T white sugar, salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Marinate for at least 2 hours, up to several. The onions soften up surprisingly quickly. Try to cover the onions with the marinate - add more vinegar or maybe even water if needed to achieve adequate volume. This could probably use all kinds of tweaking, depending on your tastes - am still working on getting it just right!
• Shred 2 heads of green lettuce
• Thinly slice 1 large or 2 small tomatoes
• Layer the lettuce, tomatoes, and onions in a large bowl, pouring the onion marinade over the whole concoction as a dressing.