Thai Grilled Shrimp Salad

This salad is a righteous incredible summer treat.  Pair it with a crisp Pinot Gris and you are in heaven.  Did I throw enough superlatives at it for ya?  I hope so as I really wanted to drive home how good it is as a meal.

Make your life easy here...remember to zest your lime first then juice it. Going the other way you'll get owwie fingers and lose most of the zest.

Thai Grilled Shrimp Salad
4 servings

• 2 lbs shelled and deveined 16-20 count xlarge shrimp
• Juice of 2 limes
• zest of one lime
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 T red pepper flakes
• 1 T toasted sesame oil
• 1 t fish sauce
• 1 T soy sauce
• 1/3 C rice wine vinegar
• 2/3 C neutral oil like canola
• 3/4 C fresh mint leaves
• 3/4 C fresh cilantro leaves
• 8 C mixed greens (I use a spring mix)

Combine zest, pepper flakes, lime juice, garlic, sesame oil, fish sauce, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, oils and 1/4 C each mint and cilantro leaves in a food processor.  Pulse several times until herbs and garlic are finely minced.  Reserve scant 1/2 cup of this for dressing the salad greens.

Skewer shrimp and place in a large glass baking dish.  Pour remaining dressing over the shrimp and toss to marinate.  Marinate 1 hour. 
Remove from marinade.  Shake off excess. Grill over hot grill 2-3 minutes per side until pink but still tender.

Toss mixed greens with remaining half cup of mint and cilantro leaves.  Toss with dressing and divide among 4 serving bowls.  Deskewer the shrimp and divide among the 4 bowls of greens.

Stupid Easy Thai Style homemade cup-o-noodles

Life doesn't really get any easier than this.  Fresh noodles from your local asian grocery.  Broth and some herbage to finish it off.  Best of all since you are controlling the ingredients there is no fear of MSG!

Today I went Thai with it.  What made it Thai you may ask?  Fish Sauce and Thai Chili's.  Finish with a squirt of lime.  Its done as fast as that

The noodles are hard(ish) to find if you don't have an Asian market close to you.  If you do have one such market close by I urge you to spend time there and get to know all the ingredients, fresh and otherwise.  Who knew there were 20 kinds of Bok Choy...there are and each are a little different in size and texture, all taste similar.  The funnest part is wandering over to the fresh noodle arena, my local market has literally over a 100 kinds of noodles, many gluten free as they are made from rice. The noodles I used here were pre-packaged soba noodles.  A sorta reasonable substitute be cooked whole wheat spaghetti.

I usually have homemade chicken stock around, but today I didn't so I used my next best favorite, the trusty can of Swanson's low sodium chicken broth.

The big word of caution here is that a little fish sauce goes a long, long way.  Too much and its just stank.  Just a few drops here and it adds another level of flavor that doesn't overpower and adds just the right amount of salinity.

Stupid Easy Thai Style Cup-o-noodles

• 1 C fresh soba noodle
• 1 can Chicken broth (about 2 c)
• 1-2 thinly sliced Thai Chili
• 2 green onions, thinly sliced
• 1 T fresh cilantro
• 4 drops fish sauce
• 1/2 t low sodium soy sauce
• lime

In small sauce pan add chicken broth and heat to simmer. Add fish sauce and soy sauce. Add fresh soba noodles and cook 1-2 minutes until heated through.  Take off heat, stir in onion, chili(s) and cilantro.  Pour off into serving bowl and give it a squirt of fresh lime juice.

Chow Mein Salad, perfect for a summer heat wave

When its a bajillion degrees here in the SGV the last thing I want is hot food.  Cold Salads are so much more agreeable and it doesn't involve standing over a hot stove. A total win.

This salad is labor intensive.  I'm not sure where I got the recipe from but its tasty and a good stand by.  Most of the ingredients can be found in your local groc these days in the Asian section.  The veggies were chosen because they looked good and were all peak of season fresh. You can sub in whatever you find that looks good, just remember that the final measurement of fresh cut veg will be about 6 cups.

I like the salad as is.  If you aren't a cilantro fan cut back on the amount.  Ditto the Sriracha sauce.  My better half thinks the salad needs more crunch and often adds the fried chow mein noodles or fried wonton skins to the salad.  I think the veggies have enough crunch so I don't add any noodles/wontons.  Its a personal preference and go for it if you want.

Sesame oil comes in two varieties, regular and toasted.  The toasted is darker in color and nuttier and is my preference.  When using Sesame Oil in dressing remember a little goes a long, long way.  Too much and its floral qualities overtake the dressing and that's all you taste.  Moderation with this one, and that's a good thing to as it is a relatively expensive oil.

Chow Mein Salad

• 2 pks chow mein noodles (8 oz)
• 1 hothouse cucumber
• 3 carrots
• 1 bunch radish
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 bunch green onions
• 1 bunch cilantro
• 1/3 c vegetable oil
• 1/3 c rice wine vinegar (unseasoned)
• 1 T sesame oil
• 1 T Sriracha hot sauce (or to taste)
• 1/2 t salt

Cook noodles according to package direction in salted water.  Rinse under cold water to cool after they are cooked through.
Cut cucumber, carrots and bell pepper into match sticks sized pieces.  Slice radish thin (I use a mandolin). Thin slice green onion including tops.   Coarse chop the cilantro leaves.  Add veggies and cilantro to the cooled noodles and toss to combine.

Mix vegetable oil, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, sriracha and salt.  Pour over noodle mixture and toss to combine.  Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours so it is well chilled and the flavors meld.

Salsa Fresca (Fresh Salsa in case you need some help)

OK there are prolly as many recipes for salsa as there are Mexican grandmothers, but my base recipe didn't come from one of them, rather the basic idea came from the LA Times somewhere around 1989. Their recipe included a secret ingredient...a splash of acidity from citrus to brighten it up a bit without really changing up the idea of it being simple salsa. It reportedly came from the kitchens of El Torito (A big chain here in the SW) according to my now brown tinged recipe.

It does include cilantro. I use the full amount, 1 cup as my household loves the stuff. If your family isn't a big fan of the green herbage feel free to cut back on it, but don't eliminate as it really is there for flavor.

The other thing that it needs you attention is the use of a jalapeno. I use the red kind, even though they are a bit more expensive, as they have a fuller sweeter flavor than the green kind. By all means swap out the green if that is all you can find, the red is purely my flavor choice.

The other flavor choice comes with the tomatoes. Again you pay a bit more than the usual grocery store stuff, but its worth it. I use the small cherry tomatoes as they are so much more flavorful compared to the regular 'maters in the grocery store. By all means use the large ones if you are growing your own this summer.

This could take FOREVER to do if you don't have a food processor. I can only imagine how long it would take to fine dice all the tomatoes, onions etc.,. By all means break out the machine as you have salsa literally in a few pulses with it.

Salsa Fresca

• 12 oz cherry tomatoes
• 1 large onion
• 1 red jalapeno
• 1 c cilantro - loosely packed
• 1/4 t salt
• juice of one lemon or lime (I use alternate depending upon if I have a huge crop or not)

Place ingredients in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse several times until you have a fine dice.

Serve with chips, in tacos, or where ever, how ever you use salsa.

Asian Style Pickles

This is one of those recipes where I had something that was so good I had to try to replicate it.  There is a local restaurant, Teri & Yaki that specializes in "asian comfort food".  The stuff is pretty darn good.  

I got hooked on a particular side dish a couple of years ago when they opened the one here in outer monrovia.  It is "Spicy Cucumber".  It is obviously cucumber, red pepper flake, very pronounced sesame oil taste but after that it gets to be a little difficult to ID some of the bits and pieces in it, especially the herbage.  

Last spring I bought one of those jumbo packs of "English Cucumbers" from Costco.  I still don't know what possessed me to buy it as there are 4 huge cucumbers in the pack, far more than we could eat in a week or before they went bad.  With all those cukes I decided to try and put together something resembling the "Spicy Cucumber" from Teri & Yaki.  After a couple of tries I put up my first batch.  A couple of times more and I had it.  Now whenever I have something asian on the entree' list I can have my own "Asian Style Pickles".

Asian Style Pickles

• 2-3 Engrish Cucumbers
  
• 1/2 C cilantro - coarse chopped
• 3 small green onions, thinly sliced  including tops
• 1/2 -1 t red pepper flakes (to taste)
• Sesame Chicken Salad Dressing - approx 1 cup to cover.

Using mandolin slice cucumbers very thin.   Put about 1 1/2 inches cucumber in a quart pickle jar.  Add 1/5 of the sliced onion, cilantro and red pepper flakes.  Repeat layers until jar is filled.

Cover with Sesame Chicken Salad Dressing.  Add lid and seal tightly.  Refrigerate for one week.  Will keep up to 2 months in the fridge. 

I use this as a straight up side dish.  Other times I scoop out the cucumbers and dressing and put over cooked chicken and lettuce.  I've even tossed some into cooked couscous or rice for a heartier side dish.  Its pretty versatile and tasty too!