Spinach Berry Salad

[branwyn]

Supper was spinach salad with berries (straw and blue), nuts (toasted almonds) and poached chicken. I did not like the Japanese Ginger dressing I used, and would opt for a raspberry vinaigrette to complete the 'holy trinity' of berries - I originally thought I had some and did not. Lemon poppyseed or creamy raspberry might also be delicious: but

Comments

[wolfgrowl]

Every so often I find a restaurant Japanese ginger dressing I love but the Japanese steakhouse style which seems to be mostly sugar, ginger and rice wine vineagar, or bottled dressings (ie costco carries a cheap and terrible dressing in a huge bottle) are awful.

I think the very delicious style with miso may be either too expensive to manufacture or perishable. A local restaurant sells it in recycled water bottles for $7 and its pretty good.

I am working on recreating it. A Japanese friend is bringing me some Shiromiso (white miso paste) so I can start on it. I can let you know the recipe if I can figure it out.

[branwyn]

*nods* I would be interested in a good recipe, if only to serve on a small green salad with sushi... when I get around to doing that. :)

In my case I think the problem is just that it was not well-matched to the salad... I think I've had this one before with a salad more suited to it (spinach with orange segments and almonds), and it was fine.

B.

[wolfgrowl]

A little bit of Shiromiso goes a long way! A friend bought me a 400g package at a Japanese grocery store in Toronto and brought it down when he was visiting us in the Falls.

My recipe at the end (calories, grams fat) in brackets:

2 tbl shiromiso (80, 1)

2-3 tbl chopped ginger (12)

2 tbl rice wine vinegar (6)

2 tbl fresh lemon juice(7)

1 tbl tahini (105, 1.5)

1 tbl dark sesame oil (40,4.5)

2 tbl soy oil (80, 9)

I pureed it in a mini food processor.

My last part of the experiment was bringing up the tartness with lemon although you could just use more rice wine vinegar. The tahini gives it a creamy texture and you could leave it out it you want a lighter/lower cal dressing. Calories are in brackets. Total for the entire batch is 330 calories and it makes about 150 ml of salad dressing.

[wolfgrowl]

Further dressing evolution (I've since had it in a meal and subjected my favourite test subject to it):

Don't use lemon juice - it crowds outthe other flavours - use more rice wine vinegar.

The batch was good but the lemon didn't work.

I've since made a new batch. I added a third tbl of shiromiso and only used rice wine vinegar and I used up a piece of ginger I had that was a bit larger - closer to 4 tbl.

At the end I topped it up to 250 ml using rice wine vinegar and oil adding each gradually to taste.

[purplezart]

instructions for chicken-poaching will follow

yes please

[branwyn]

Subsequently posted here.

B.