Ensalada Ilustrada Aragonesa

Ensalada Ilustrada is Aragón's dressed-up salad, a bed of crisp lettuce made generous with tuna in olive oil, hard-boiled egg, white asparagus, roasted pepper, olives, and a plain oil-and-vinegar dressing. The name means illustrated, and it earns it: the green salad is not buried or chopped small. It is set out with its good things plainly on top, the way a shared platter should be.

The step that decides it is water. Wash the lettuce, then dry it properly; drain the asparagus, pepper, and tuna until they stop weeping into the plate. A dressed-up salad can still be a soggy salad if you hurry. Dry leaves take the vinaigrette. Wet leaves give you a puddle at the bottom.

For the right taste, buy the good pantry things: bonito del norte if you can, white asparagus from a jar or tin, roasted red pepper with some flesh to it, and black olives de Aragón, Empeltre if they cross your path. No hace falta haber pisado España. Oil-packed tuna works, any firm jarred white asparagus works, and green asparagus, blanched and cooled, will do when it must, though it eats fresher and less soft than the conserva.

Keep the dressing sharp and simple: red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt. No mayonnaise, no sweet bottled dressing, no heap of every jar in the cupboard. My Margin says only: dry first, dress last. Siempre sale, si lo sigues.