Tag: salad
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.
Moo Manoa (Garlic Lime Pork)
Moo Manoa (Garlic Lime Pork)
This garlic lime pork has all of the complexities of Thai food: sweet, salty, sour, and spicy. Pork is the traditional protein used in this dish, but you can use beef, chicken, or shrimp. This recipe is fairly healthy and easy to make. You can eat moo manoa as an appetizer or main course. This can be eaten not just as a salad. Why couldn’t pork go into a taco and the cabbage be tossed with the mint and dressing, topping the taco? Why not put the pork on a toasted baguette with the same cabbage and mint salad? Smoke deeper and expand your mind.
Servings: 4
Equipment
- mortar and pestle
Ingredients
- 1 lb pork sirloin sliced less than 1/4” thick
- 6 tbsp water
- 2 tbsp cornstarch
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
- 4 cups cabbage shredded
Dressing
- 6 garlic cloves
- 4 Thai chilies 2 red, 2 green
- 3 tbsp palm sugar chopped
- 6 tbsp lime juice
- 4 tbsp fish sauce
- 2 tbsp cilantro chopped
Garnish
- mint leaves roughly torn
Instructions
Velveting the Pork
- Mix together the water, cornstarch, soy sauce, and vegetable oil.
- Add in the sliced pork and marinate for 20 minutes.
- Bring a pot of water to a hard boil. Drop in the pork and cook for just 30 seconds.
- Scoop out and set aside.
Dressing
- Pound the garlic, chilies, and palm sugar to a paste in a mortar and pestle.
- Add in the lime juice and fish sauce. Keep pounding.
- Stir in the cilantro.
Assembly
- Top the shredded cabbage with the pork. Spoon the dressing over the pork. Garnish with mints leaves.
Papaya Salad
Papaya Salad
Papaya salad originated from Laos, but is eaten in many Southeast Asian countries such as Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Each country has their own variation of the recipe; some containing crab, Thai eggplant, mango, unripened banana, apples, cucumbers to name a few. Papaya salad is always served with sticky glutinous rice.I first had papaya salad in high school in my Chinese class. A classmate of mine brought it in. I believe this was the first Thai food that I had eaten at the time. Sweet and spicy with a sort of funk to the flavor; that coming from the fish sauce and shrimp paste. You can adjust the heat levels to your liking by adding more or less Thai chilies.You can usually find fresh green papaya already shredded at most Asian markets. They sell it at mine for only $3.99lb. If you can’t find it already shredded, you’re going to have to do that at home. I happen to have a grating attachment on my food processor, so it took a whole 15 seconds to grate to whole papaya. You can also use a regular grater if you don’t have a food processor. The goal is to have the papaya simulate noodles. The long beans add a nice crunch to the salad.
Ingredients
- 4 garlic cloves minced
- 3 Thai chilies finely chopped
- 3 tbsp palm sugar
- 3 tbsp fish sauce
- 3/4 tsp shrimp paste
- 1/4 cup dried shrimp chopped
- 1 lime juiced
- 1 lb green papaya shredded
- 4 oz long beans cut into 2” pieces
- 4 oz cherry or grape tomatoes halved
- 3 tbsp peanuts chopped
Instructions
- Mix together the garlic, chilies, fish sauce, palm sugar, shrimp paste, dried shrimp, and lime juice. Make sure the palm sugar is completely dissolved.
- Add in the shredded green papaya and long beans. Toss in the dressing.
- Add in the tomatoes and peanuts, tossing in the salad.
