Red cabbage, radish, sesame and wasabi

We had a red cabbage in the fridge, and three tubes of wasabi to use up before we leave (not going to happen)... I'd stumbled across these coleslaw recipes a couple of times, and this time thought I'd borrow the wasabi dressing idea for a red cabbage salad.

~1/2 a smallish red cabbage
2 medium-large purple radishes, peeled and grated
2 medium carrots, peeled and grated
~ 1 tbsp chopped chives

~1 tbsp peeled, finely chopped ginger
~1 tbsp wasabi paste
~ 2 tsp honey
juice of ~ 1/3 lime
~1 tsp umeboshi plum vinegar (optional)
~1 tbsp cider vinegar
~1 tsp sesame oil
~ 1 1/2 tbsp sunflower oil

1 tbsp white sesame seeds and 1 tbsp black sesame seeds, toasted

Finely shred the cabbage and put in a medium bowl with the grated radishes and carrots. Add the chives. In a small bowl, whisk together the ginger, wasabi, honey, lime juice, vinegars and oils. Pour the dressing over the vegetables, add the toasted seeds, toss and serve. Best eaten immediately but keeps OK for a couple of days in the fridge.


Another fresh+tasty Winter salad.

Onigiri

As we planned our GF baking day, I remembered about K's awesome onigiri, and asked her to teach us how to make those at the same time... Excitingly, she agreed. We made them first, and ate them for lunch. They were a lot of fun to make and damn fine to eat too.

1 1/2 cups sushi rice (brown or white), cooked in 2 cups water until al dente, unseasoned
~ 10 full sheets of toasted nori (the same seaweed as used for making sushi)
sea salt

Any or all of these fillings / seasonings:
umeboshi plums*
pickled shiso
sesame seeds, black and white, toasted
chickpea miso
brown rice miso
umeboshi-sesame-shiso seasoning for rice

Wet your hands and rub them with a pinch of sea salt. Fill your left palm with a clump of cooked rice: about 4 tbsp. With your right thumb, make an indentation in the middle of the rice. Put a plum and some shiso, or a tsp of a mixture of miso and sesame seeds, in the indentation and then close up the rice over and around the filling so it is buried in the middle.

Then shape the onigiri. To make a triangle shape, simultaneously squash the rice gently between the base of your left thumb and your left fingers (to make the flat sides), and bend your right hand over the top and squash the rice gently between your bent right hand and your left palm to make a point of the triangle (see (1) in the photo above). Flip the rice and squash gently on all three sides to make a triangle until the rice is holding well together (see (2), above). Continue until all the rice mixture is used up. If you like, you can mix seasoning (the umeboshi-shiso-sesame one was delicious) through the rice at some point to make a variation.

To cover the onigiri, crease the seaweed sheets and split in half (see (3) above). Take one half and place the rice triangle in the middle. Fold the seaweed up around it (rough side in) and use to cover the whole surface (see (4) above), tearing the seaweed to fit and removing pieces if necessary. Repeat for all rice triangles.

At this point you can eat straight away, or keep them covered or wrapped in cling film for up to half a day.

*If you don't have umeboshi make a cheat version by soaking halved, dried, non-sulfur apricots in a warmed half-half mixture of rice vinegar and umeboshi vinegar (or just rice vinegar with a good pinch of salt) for about 10 minutes (or longer).

Cold peanut noodle salad / chickpea avocado salad

Reinventing leftovers - to make something interesting.

We had some wonderful asparagus (from the farm shop on the way to Bboro) - really fresh and tender.  Even the shoots as big as my finger were super tender.  I just steamed them for 5-10min then we ate them with a little 'butter' and salt and pepper.  Soooo good - could have eaten them forever.

Cold peanut noodle salad

We had noodles and some leek flower with dried tofu left from yesterday's dinner so I decided to make it into a salad.

~500g cooked green ribbon noodles
1 cup mixed fried dry tofu and leek flowers

~1 1/2 tbsp coriander, chopped
~1 1/2 tbsp mint, chopped

For dressing:
2 tbsp unsalted peanut butter
1 tbsp miso paste
1 tbsp umeboshi plum vinegar
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp lemon juice

Put the dressing ingredients in bottom of medium bowl and mix well together - taste to check balance (the plum vinegar is quite sour and the miso quite salty).  Tear the noodles into manageable sized pieces and add.  Mix well together.  Add tofu / leek flower and herbs and mix.


Chickpea avocado salad

I prepped a whole load of chickpeas and blackeyed peas at the weekend - this is chickpeas, combined with some stuff out the fridge that needed using (incl a beautifully ripe avocado from TJs - I bought organic because it seemed to be cheaper that day - is it worth buying organic more often?)...

2 cups cooked chickpeas
1 small ripe avocado, roughly chopped
3/4 a small yellow bell pepper, roughly chopped

1 1/2 tbsp coriander, chopped
1 1/2 tbsp mint, chopped
good squeeze of lemon juice

olive oil
salt+pepper

Put all ingredients into a bowl, toss and serve.