Everyday Vinaigrette

Put the chopped shallot in a small bowl with the red wine vinegar.

Leave it for 5 minutes, which takes the raw heat out of the shallot and seasons the vinegar with it.

Learn the ratio rather than the numbers: three parts oil to one part acid. Here that is 90ml of oil to 30ml of vinegar, but it holds at any scale, and lemon juice, cider vinegar or sherry vinegar all work in place of the red wine vinegar.

Whisk the mustard, honey, the 2g of fine salt and the ground peppercorns into the vinegar until the salt has dissolved.

Add the olive oil a few drops at a time to begin with, whisking constantly.

Do not tip the oil in all at once. Mustard holds the oil in suspension only if the drops arrive slowly enough to be broken up and coated as they go in — poured in a stream, the oil stays as one mass and the dressing splits back into two layers within seconds.

Speed up to a thin trickle once the mixture has thickened and turned opaque, about a third of the way through the oil.

Keep whisking until all the oil is in and the dressing is pale, glossy and thick enough to hold a coat on the back of a spoon.

Taste it on a leaf rather than off a spoon. Neat vinaigrette always tastes too sharp; only the leaf tells you whether it is balanced.

Correct it with a little more salt, or a few more drops of oil if it bites.

Keep it in a jar in the fridge for up to a week. It makes about 150ml, enough to dress a large salad for six.

Use it on more than leaves. The lemony chickpea and herb salad in this collection takes it in place of its own dressing, though that one is deliberately sharper because warm chickpeas drink so much of it.

Shake it hard before each use. Cold separates the dressing and turns the olive oil cloudy and semi-solid, and both come back within a few minutes at room temperature.