Sesame & Applesauce Salad Dressing And Dip

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Sesame & Applesauce Salad Dressing And Dip

Link to my newest and old recipes, click:

https://kitchenbaroness.wordpress.com/

This is my Japanese inspired, oil free sesame salad dressing sweeten primarily with applesauce. It also makes a wonderful dipping sauce.

This creamy sauce is inspired by the many bowls of avocado salad that I have been ordering from a small Japanese eatery. I am always ordering the same two items off their menu, chirashi don (sashimi laid over a bowl of sushi rice) and avocado salad. 

I was frequenting the eatery too often. It reached a point where I decided I should just learn how to make the sauce. After all, not only would it be more economical, it would also save me the hassle of finding a car park lot in an area noted for limited parking space.

The bonus to now being able to make this sauce is the versatility of it. Use it:

• as a salad dressing (but of course)
• as a dip for a range of vegetables
• drizzled over cold tofu
• poured over little parcels of tightly bundled, chilled blanched spinach
• as an additional dipping sauce for Japanese hot pot/steamboat (shabu-shabu)
• on cold udon noodles

Scroll down to 'Tips' for visuals of some of the above dishes.

SESAME & APPLESAUCE SALAD DRESSING AND DIP

Prep:	5 minutes
Cook:	3 minutes (to toast the sesame seeds)
Inactive:	-
Level:	Easy
Makes:	~1 and 1/2 cups of dressing; ~1 and 1/4 cups of dip
Oven Temperature:	-
Can recipe be doubled?	Yes
Make ahead?	Can be made 5 days ahead.

Just the ingredients 4 and 1/2 Tablespoons sesame seeds 6 Tablespoons applesauce 4 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar  1 and 1/2 Tablespoons mirin 1 and 1/2 Tablespoons Kikoman soy sauce  1 and 1/2 Tablespoons white miso  1 teaspoon mustard powder 1 Tablespoon sugar If you intend to use as a salad dressing, add: Up to 1/4 cup cold water + up to 1/4 teaspoon of salt

Ingredients

4 and 1/2 Tablespoons sesame seeds

6 Tablespoons apple sauce

Instead of buying a bottle/can of applesauce, you could buy a small bottle from the baby food aisle.

4 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar 

1 and 1/2 Tablespoons mirin

1 and 1/2 Tablespoons Kikoman soy sauce 

1 and 1/2 Tablespoons white miso 

1 teaspoon mustard powder

1 Tablespoon sugar

If you are not intending to use the sauce as a dip, add:

Up to 1/4 cup cold water + up to 1/4 teaspoon of salt

Applesauce comes in varying viscosity. Adjust more/less water to get it into a thin salad dressing consistency. Adjust salt in proportion to the amount of water you add.

Method

Toast the sesame seeds in a hot frying pan. Stir the seeds to avoid burning.

Once it starts to smell nice and are a light golden brown, turn off the heat and remove the pan from the burner. Transfer to a plate. 

If you leave it in the pan, it might start to burn in the residual heat. Cool.

In a grinder, grind the cooled sesame seeds until fine. If your grinder is also a food processor, making this sauce will be quite effortless. 

Fortunately, my machine has dual functions and it takes me less than 2 minutes to complete making the sauce.

Now add, apple cider vinegar, mirin, soy sauce, apple sauce, miso, sugar and dry mustard powder. 

Turn on the machine and grind until smooth. 

Taste and adjust seasoning. It should taste stronger than what you want as it will taste less intense once you use the sauce over your food of choice.

Sauces, miso and vinegars varies in intensity of flavour and viscosity. If your sauce is too thin (mostly likely because the applesauce is thinner than the one I used), add 1/2 Tablespoon more toasted (and ground) sesame seeds. Likewise, if too sour, add more sugar or applesauce, etcetera.

The sauce at this stage can be used as a dip. You should not need to add any of the cold water.

For all other uses, I would thin it out with a little cold water, but not more than 1/4 cup of cold water. If you add the full 1/4 cup of cold water, add that additional 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Adjust salt according to the amount of cold water you end up adding.

Transfer into an airtight bottle and refrigerate. It taste better chilled.

Tips

I made the dishes below so that you have a visual of how else this very versatile sauce could be used. 

Over cold blocks of tofu

Over cold, pressed bundles of spinach

As a sauce over cold Japanese udon

It is a good alternative to dairy based dips or another salsa. On the platter are turnips (jicama), endives, etcetera. 

WHAT'S COMING UP NEXT?                                                 

This Avocado Salad which I have been eating lots of! It uses the Sesame Applesauce Salad Dressing that you now know how to make!

Figs & Peppered Ricotta Salad With A Homemade Balsamic Vinaigrette

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Figs & Peppered Ricotta Salad With A Homemade Balsamic Vinaigrette

Link to my newest and old recipes, click:

https://kitchenbaroness.wordpress.com

Salad greens drizzled with a delicious homemade balsamic vinaigrette pairs perfectly with pre-dressed figs - quarter figs down almost to its base, pucker them up, dollop with ricotta and top with pepper, honey, extra virgin olive oil and lemon zest. All you need now is a fork.

Once I get word that figs are in season, I hasten to the market to get some. I love figs! I love them as they are, in my breakfast oats, in my dessert pies but best of all, in this salad!

FIGS AND PEPPERED RICOTTA WITH A HOMEMADE BALSAMIC VINAIGRETTE 

Prep:	10 minutes
Cook:	-
Inactive:	-
Level:	Easy
Serves:	2
Oven Temperature:	-
Can recipe be doubled?	Yes
Make ahead?	Vinaigrette can be made a week ahead.

Just the ingredients For the vinaigrette 2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 1 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar 1/2 to 1 teaspoon sugar pinch of pepper and salt For the salad 4 figs 4 Tablespoons ricotta 2 teaspoons honey Extra virgin olive oil for drizzling 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest  1/8 teaspoon black pepper 2 cups of mesclun/mixed salad greens

Ingredients

For the vinaigrette

2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Don't splurge on authentic, super pricey balsamic vinegar. Use what you can purchase from your regular grocery store which is affordable though it differs considerably in taste from premium grade. This is why I mention (below), you must add the caster sugar.

1/2 to 1 teaspoon sugar

The amount of sugar you use depends on how sharp the balsamic vinegar taste. You want the salad dressing to be slightly on the sweet side. Don't skip.

Pinch of pepper and salt

For the salad

4 Figs

4 Tablespoons ricotta

The consistency of ricotta differs across brands. If the ricotta is runny (like the one pictured above), before using, drain it for 1/2 an hour or overnight, in a colander/strainer that has been lined with kitchen paper towels.

2 teaspoons honey

Extra virgin olive oil for drizzling

1/2 teaspoon lemon zest or grate the lemon zest directly over the figs

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

2 cups of mesclun/mixed salad greens

Method

Prepare the balsamic vinaigrette

Whisk all the balsamic vinaigrette ingredients together. Taste and adjust seasonings. 

If you are not using it shortly, refrigerate. I like this dressing to be chilled.

Dress the figs

Prepare the figs only when you are ready to eat.

Set all the figs on a plate.

Quarter the figs almost down to its base. Use your two thumbs and forefingers to pinch and push the base of the figs upwards so that they are thrust upwards to open up like a blossom. Return them to the plate. 

Dollop 1 Tablespoons of ricotta into each cavity. Remember to drain ricotta before hand if its consistency is runny.

Drizzle 1/2 teaspoon honey over each mound of ricotta. 

Lightly drizzle extra virgin olive oil over each fig. 

Divide the 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest or zest directly over the figs.

Finally, sprinkle black pepper over each mound of ricotta. 

Assembling the salad

Distribute the mesclun/salad greens onto 2 plates and drizzle the balsamic vinaigrette over them.

Place 2 dressed figs over each plate of salad. Eat.

Tips

• So you do not like figs. No problem. Use peaches or nectarines instead.

• The dressed figs can be served as part of a meze. I often do so when they are in season. For the recipes of the meze on my dining table, click here, Meze, A Selection of Wonderful Little Bites. 

WHAT'S COMING UP NEXT?                                                

A Japanese Sesame Sauce that I make with applesauce. You can choose to use it as a salad dressing or as a dip. In Japanese restaurants, there is a similar sesame sauce that is drizzled over blocks of cold tofu or little parcels of cold tightly bundled spinach. So many ways to enjoy it!

Beetroot Salad With 20-minutes Sweet Pickled Onions

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Beetroot Salad With 20-minutes Sweet Pickled Onions.Link to my newest and old recipes, click:

https://kitchenbaroness.wordpress.com/

Here is a beetroot salad with an interesting blend of unexpected flavours - sweet, salty, savoury and sharp.

The salty savouriness comes from the creamy blue cheese and then there is extra virgin olive oil. The sweetness and sharpness is from the onions that were pickled in sugar and vinegar. The sharp and salty capers and pickled onions provides little bites of crunch to the salad. 

Those who like beetroots would like this salad. Those who do not appreciate the earthy flavour of beetroots would find this salad rather palatable as the other flavours - sweet, salty, sharp - helps tone down the 'earthiness' of beetroot. 

This salad goes best with fresh crusty bread, such as a baguette, so that you can sponge up all the flavours off your plate.

There is no salad dressing to prepare. Drizzle the plated salad with the sweet pickled juices, extra virgin olive oil and grate a generous amount of lemon zest over the plate. It becomes even simpler to make if you can buy ready cooked beetroots.

This is my favourite way to eat beetroot.

ROASTED BEETROOT SALAD WITH 20-MINUTE SWEET PICKLED ONIONS

Prep:	15 minutes
Cook:	~1 hour to roast beetroot or buy ready roasted
Inactive:	20 minutes
Level:	Easy
Serves:	2
Oven Temperature:	400 F (200C) if roasting beetroot
Can recipe be doubled?	Yes
Make ahead?	Up to 2 days

Just the ingredients 20-minute sweet pickled onions 1/2 cup (50g) onions, thinly sliced 1 Tablespoon lemon/lime juice 1 and 1/2 Tablespoons sugar 1/2 teaspoon salt Salad ingredients 1 whole beetroot OR buy ready roasted 1 teaspoon capers 2 Tablespoons (less/more) of any kind of blue cheese 1 to 2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil  1 Tablespoon lemon juice  1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon black pepper Zest of 1 lemon/lime

Ingredients

20-minute pickled onions

1/2 cup (50g) onions, thinly sliced

1 Tablespoon lemon/lime juice

1 and 1/2 Tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

Salad ingredients

1 whole beetroot OR buy ready roasted
1 teaspoon capers

2 Tablespoons (less/more) of any kind of blue cheese

1 to 2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 

1 Tablespoon lemon juice 

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Zest of 1 lemon/lime

Method

Roast the beetroot

Heat up the oven to 400F (200C) oven rack adjusted to middle position. Wrap the beetroot in aluminium foil. It should look like a UFO.  Hot air circulates within the package and helps speed up cooking. That is what I am told anyway.

Bake in heated oven for 1 hour. Beetroot is cooked when you can easily insert a skewer through it. 

Unwrap and when it is cool enough to handle, peel off the skin which can be pretty fun. Slice the beetroot as thinly as you can manage. Cover and set aside until ready to use. I keep the sliced beetroot in the refrigerator as I like them cold.

Assembling the salad

Arrange the sliced beetroot on a large flat serving plate. Distribute the capers, little bites of blue cheese and drained pickled onions over them.

Drizzle the extra virgin olive and lemon juice. Sprinkle pepper and salt.

Finally grate lemon zest directly over the salad.

Serve with chunks of bread.

Tips

If you like beetroot, it makes sense to roast more than one beetroot in the oven. I often roast at least 3 individually aluminium foiled wrapped beetroot at a time.

This is what I do with them:

• Roast Beef With Beetroot Tea Sandwiches

My ideal roast beef tea sandwich. Beefy tasting,
 tender and moist.

There is a thin slice of beetroot within each sandwich. I roast my own beef and they are meltingly tender with an enticing round pink centre.

• Beetroot soup

If you have a blender, this is about the easiest soup you can make as you literally zap all the ingredients in a blender. I add capers in it for an unexpected tangy zing! I will be posting this recipe shortly. It is rather different from the usual beetroot soups.

WHAT'S COMING UP NEXT?                                                 

Figs Topped With Peppered Ricotta served on a bed of mesclun salad drizzled with an easy homemade balsamic vinaigrette.

Pasta Tossed In A Radish Sprouts & Light Sour Cream Sauce

Hi! I'm now working from Wordpress. I've spent a great deal of time editing and reorganising this post on Wordpress and it is so much friendlier to read & follow my recipe from there. Click on this link to take you directly to the recipe:

Pasta Tossed In A Radish Sprouts Light Sour Cream Sauce

Link to my newest and old recipes, click:

https://kitchenbaroness.wordpress.com/

This is a meal with an interesting mix of taste and textures. It is quite unique and those that I have served this to are quite surprise at how much they end up enjoying it.

Radish sprouts provide a peppery, spicy zing to what would otherwise be just another pasta sauce. I added smoked salmon for that smoky saltiness and topped it with soy sauce flavoured salmon roe for that savoury umami taste. 

The sweetish, round balls of briny Japanese salmon roe (Ikura Shoyu), also provides a wonderful textural element to the dish. With each bite of an Ikura Shoyu ball, you get a slight crunch and a burst of flavours as they gently pop. I like eating them.

Radish sprouts can taste shockingly pungent. It is not a vegetable that I would eat on its own. I can't imagine anyone wanting to eat it on its own. It is just like chillies, it acts as a complement to something else. 

Have you had the experience of putting a dab too much of the Japanese mustard, wasabi, on your sashimi or sushi and then eating it? 

Do you recall how your mind becomes momentarily stunned as the pungency travels up through you nasal cavity and then in between your eyes to culminate in what feels like a mini explosion right in between your eyebrows? Radish sprouts can have a similar effect. You cannot have too much of it.

That is why light sour cream works well with radish sprouts. It softens the pungent heat from the sprouts not only with its light creaminess but also with that slight 'sourishness'.

If you do not eat Ikura Shoyu, to substitute, drizzle a little soy sauce over cucumber that has been diced into slightly smaller dice than a salmon roe.

PASTA TOSSED IN A RADISH SPROUTS & LIGHT SOUR CREAM SAUCE 

Prep:	5 minutes
Cook:	15 minutes
Inactive:	-
Level:	Easy
Serves:	2
Oven Temperature:	-
Can recipe be doubled?	Yes
Make ahead?	Sauce can be made a day ahead. Warm through before serving.

Just the ingredients Enough cooked pasta for 2 persons 1 cup of pasta water (water you used to cook pasta in) 3/4 cup light sour cream 1/2 cup radish sprouts 1/4 cup parmesan grated 1 small garlic clove 1/4 teaspoon pepper 1/8 teaspoon salt 200g smoked salmon slices 100g ikura shoyu OR 100g salmon caviar with a little soy sauce & caster sugar OR slightly less than 1/4 cup of diced seedless cucumber + 1/4 teaspoon soy sauce

Ingredients

Enough cooked pasta for 2 persons

1 cup of pasta water
Water where you had boiled your pasta.

3/4 cup light sour cream

1/2 cup (or more) radish sprouts + a few more sprouts to top the pasta

1/4 cup parmesan grated

1 small garlic clove

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/8 teaspoon salt

200g smoked salmon slices

100g Ikura Shoyu

Salmon roe that has been marinated/preserved in soy sauce and sake and/or mirin (Japanese cooking rice wine that is sweetened). It taste slightly sweet, is not as salty and the addition of soy sauce and sake and/or mirin makes it taste more interesting than regular salmon caviar.

OR

100g salmon caviar + a few drops of soy sauce and 1/4 teaspoon caster sugar
To get it to taste closer to ikura shoyu, drizzle a few drops of soy sauce and sprinkle about 1/4 teaspoon of sugar over it. Stir to mix. You need the sweetness from the sugar and the umami flavour of the soy sauce to complete this pasta dish. 

OR

slightly less than 1/4 cup of diced seedless cucumber + 1/4 teaspoon soy sauce
Prepare just before needed or it will weep and lose its crunchy texture

Method

Blend ingredients for sauce: light sour cream, parmesan, radish sprouts, garlic, 1/2 cup pasta water, pepper and salt, in a food processor until smooth. Do not be tempted to add too much parmesan.

Taste and adjust flavours. It should taste a little more concentrated than what you would want your final sauce to taste like as after you toss the pasta into the sauce, the taste will mellow.

Transfer sauce to a nonstick pot and bring sauce to a simmer over medium high heat. Stir to avoid sticking. Do not step away from the pot. At medium high heat, it will boil up sooner than you think and you want a simmer and not a boil. 

Once it starts simmering, continue stirring for another 2 minutes. 

Transfer cooked pasta into pot of sauce and toss to coat. 

If you think the sauce is too thick, loosen it up with the remaining 1/2 cup of pasta water. You should have a smooth and liquid sauce. It should not be thick and there would be just enough sauce to coat the pasta. 

Once the pasta is warmed through and well coated (in about 1 minute or 2), divide pasta onto 2 plates. 

Top with slices of smoked salmon, a few more radish sprouts and the ikura shoyu/salmon caviar/cucumber.

Serve immediately.

Tips

Here is an easy way to use up that punnet of radish sprouts:

• Egg and Cress Tea Sandwiches

My recipe for 'Pasta Tossed In A Radish Sprouts & Light Sour Cream Sauce', came about because I had 1/2 a punnet of radish sprouts and almost a full tub of light sour cream left after making these delightful sandwiches. It was featured as a side recipe in my Egg and Cress Tea Sandwiches blog post.

Now, it has its own post for your ease of reference.

The Egg and Cress Tea Sandwiches recipe, was one in a series of recipes I had posted on an English Afternoon Tea spread.  I have attached the links for your easy reference.

English Afternoon Tea. Tea anyone?

Top plate: Classic Victoria Sponge Cake, Checkerboard Cookies,
Sweet Milk Scones.
Bottom plate first layer: Egg and Cress, Roast Beef with Beetroot, Crisp Cucumbers.

Bottom plate second layer: Roast Beef with Beetroot, Salmon

with Dill Butter, Ham with Honey Butter.

WHAT'S COMING UP NEXT?                                                 

Roasted Beetroot With 20-minute Sweet Pickled Onions And Blue Cheese. 

I know quite a number of people who find beetroots rather bland. There is nothing bland about this beetroot salad. Sweet onion pickles, vinegary capers and the shock of the blue cheese perks up those earthy beetroots.  Wonderful with some crusty bread.