Recipe: Green Goddess Dressing

When I was 15, I worked at a restaurant called The Quarterdeck. It was your typical small-town fine dining type of place: char-broiled steaks with wedge fries, seafood, and chicken stuffed with ham and drowned in cheese sauce.

It was quite a popular place. I would see everyone from my high school teachers (weird) to the mayor there on any given night. Now that I look back — and knowing what I know now about the restaurant business, having owned them for over 25 years — I cannot believe the place stayed in business so long. There was nothing but a bunch of my high school friends cooking back there. All the seafood went from frozen to fryer, and all while I was bussing tables while decked out in my blue chambray shirt, dungarees, and a white cotton, gold-buckled belt. A stylish swab-ette.

As I said, it was a small town, and the choices were few.

I can’t speak much to most of the cuisine at The Quarterdeck, but one thing and one thing only stands out in my mind about the food: the Green Goddess dressing was supreme.

It was part of a little relish tray served to every table upon ordering. It was the most popular dressing for the salads, and what I ate every night with my free meal. We were allowed to eat all the leftover relish trays at the end of the night. (Things like that were done back then.) I happily ate my second-hand crudités with copious amounts of Green Goddess.

Years later, as I started developing recipes for my own places, I knew that a Green Goddess dressing would be a must. I know there are many interpretations of this storied dressing, but one thing they all have in common is that it must be green.

It’s hard to get an appetizing color of green in cookery, so I will tell you my secret (shhhhh): fresh spinach (or arugula). My version has been updated over the years, made a bit cleaner and healthier, but still packs that herby, salty, unctuous punch that I remember from my Quarterdeck restaurant days.

1 cup buttermilk
½ cup mayonnaise (I like Chosen brand)
1 ripe avocado
¼ cup chopped chives
2 cloves garlic
2 anchovy filets
1 tsp prepared mustard
1 Tbsp capers
1 dill pickle chip (optional)
1 tightly packed fistful of fresh baby spinach or arugula
½ package Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing mix

Place all ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until incorporated and smooth but slightly textured. If too thick, add one tablespoon of water at a time until the desired consistency. I like to keep this on the thicker side so that it’s good for dipping on my own relish trays.

It’s great on greens, over steaks, or drizzled over grilled vegetables.