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Spinach and Peanut Salad
Spinach and Peanut Salad
Spinach and peanut salad is a popular cold appetizer served in China. It is a combination of 2 other cold appetizers, vinegar peanuts and Chinese style spinach salad; both using the same gingery vinegar dressing.When cooking the spinach, bring a pot of water to boil. Blanch the spinach for 2 minutes. Put the spinach in an ice bath to stop them from cooking. Shocking the spinach in ice water also preserves the green color of the spinach. Once the spinach is cool, squeeze out all of the water. You may have wondered why I used a lb of spinach for and appetizer for 2. 1lb of spinach yields an amount smaller than a baseball once squeezed. It cooks down that much, but the flavor is highly concentrated.To cook the peanuts, heat them up in cold oil over medium heat. If you were to toss the peanuts in hot oil, they would burn quickly. The good thing is that the peanuts don’t absorb any of the oil starting out in cold. Letting them cool afterwards will crisp them up. After that, mix the peanuts with the spinach and pour the dressing over. Garnish with sesame seeds.
Servings: 2
Ingredients
- 1 lb baby spinach
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup raw peanuts
- 2 tbsp Chinese black vinegar
- 2 tsp sugar
- 2 tsp ginger minced
- 1 tsp light soy sauce
- 1/2 tsp sugar
Garnish
- 1 tsp white sesame seeds
Instructions
- Bring a pot of water to boil. Toss in the spinach. Blanch for 2 minutes.
- Strain the spinach in a colander. Place in an ice bath to stop the spinach from cooking.
- Squeeze out all of the excess water from the spinach. Roughly chop and place in a bowl.
- Heat up the raw peanuts in a small skillet in cold oil over medium heat. Constantly stir for 5 minutes until the peanuts are browned. Remove from the pan and let cool.
- Mix together the black vinegar, sugar, soy sauce, ginger, and salt in a bowl.
- Mix together the peanuts and spinach. Pour the dressing over. Garnish with sesame seeds.
Smoked Chicken Legs
Tips for smoking chicken Brine chicken legs for 3 hours for ones that are 3/4lb; 4 hours for ones 1lb. plus. Brining adds moisture and saltiness to the chicken. Pat the legs dry with paper towel before smoking. This allows the smoke to stick to …
Tempura Soba
Tempura Soba
Tempura soba is a hot soba noodle soup with fried tempura shrimp over the top. Making this soup is extremely easy. The dashi stock just needs heating up. Prepare the soba noodles according to the package. Ladle the stock over the noodles. Top with lots of spring onions. The only real effort is making the tempura shrimp, and that is fairly simple. If you don’t like shrimp, you can substitute tempura chicken, mushrooms, green beans, tofu, etc. Sprinkle some togarashi pepper powder over the top. It kind of gives a numbing feeling, similar to Sichuan peppercorns.
Servings: 2
Ingredients
- 4 cups dashi stock
- 3 tbsp mirin
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tbsp sake
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 portions soba noodles prepared according to package
- 3 spring onions chopped
- 12 tempura shrimp
- togarashi pepper powder to taste
Instructions
- Bring the dashi, mirin, soy sauce, sake, and salt to a boil.
- Place 1 portion of cooked soba noodles in a soup bowl.
- Ladle in 2 cups of stock. Top with spring onions. Place 6 tempura shrimp over the stop. Shake on togarashi pepper powder.
Shrimp Tempura
Tempura is one of the most famous Japanese food items outside of Japan. The batter is light and crispy without absorbing excess oil. Shrimp is one of the most popular ingredients to fry in tempura batter. Like all tempura frying ingredients, the shrimp need to be pat dry before dipping in the batter. They will only take a total of 6 minutes. Drain oil on a rack instead of paper towels to maintain the crispiness.
Servings: 2
Ingredients
- 1/2 lb 26/30 count shrimp tail on; peeled and deveined
- 1/2 cup cake flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup ice water
- vegetable oil for frying
Instructions
- Mix together all of the dry ingredients.
- Mix in the water.
- Heat up 3” of cooking oil in a pot over medium high heat(350 degrees). Pat dry the shrimp. Dip in the tempura batter. Drop in the oil. Make sure to not over crowd.
- Fry for 3 minutes a side. Drain grease on a rack.
Wafu Burger
Wafu Burger
Wafu burgers contain ground beef, shiitake mushrooms, and finely diced tofu, plus a plethora of other ingredients. The burgers are eaten bunless, which is fine by me. Wafu burgers are pan fried, then tossed in a sweet sauce that creates a shiny glaze. Since these burgers are cooked all the way through, you’d think that they’d be dry. Having the mushrooms and tofu in the burgers actually keeps them quite juicy. Serve the wafu burgers with rice.
Ingredients
Wafu Burger
- 1 lb 85% lean ground beef
- 14 oz extra firm tofu pressed; cut into 1/4” cubes
- 1/2 cup shiitake mushrooms chopped
- 1 large egg
- 2 tbsp miso paste
- 1/4 cup panko breadcrumbs
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
Sauce
- 1/4 cup mirin
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tsp ginger garlic paste
Instructions
- Mix together all of the burger ingredients.
- Form into 5-6 patties.
- Heat up the vegetable oil in a large sauté pan over medium high heat. Place the burgers in the pan.
- Brown for 2 minutes a side. Cover. Reduce the heat to medium. Cook for 5 minutes.
- Mix together the sauce ingredients.
- Pour the sauce in the pan.
- Toss the burgers in the sauce. Flip every minute until the sauce has evaporated. The burgers will have a shiny glaze.
