recipe log 1.1: salads

[kumquat]

first installment in hopefully a series of recipe compilations… inspired by risa and hwa but also my recent living situation, which has been weird and tumultuous and has given me the burden/gift in disguise of having to buy a lot of kitchen equipment and staple ingredients from scratch. so i’ve also been seeing it as a chance to systematize my meal prep habits (whether this is happening successfully remains to be seen) and organize recipes that i’ve liked in the past :)

right now this is just a record of things i’ve made before that i want to save, i think i’ve made almost all of these multiple times. some are definitely more involved than others but most can be made in a large batch and rationed out or meal prepped in some way!

raw salads

sesame slaw
caprese salad
p5 winter salad
classic tuna salad
panzanella
chinese cucumber salad
cold dressed tofu
crudites with caesar dressing

cooked salads

harissa carrot salad
arugula chickpea tahini salad
lentil potato salad
balsamic corn potato salad
sun-dried tomato potato salad

works in progress

egg salad
green goddess souvla dupe
wild rice sweetgreen dupe
lox bagel salad
tomato cucumber feta salad
beet and lentil salad
fruit salad

raw salads

sesame slaw

1. toss sliced cabbage, julienned carrots, cherry tomatoes, scallions, cilantro
   • or tender salad green of choice + sliced cucumbers, carrots, cherry tomatoes
2. dress with kewpie deep roasted sesame dressing or another premade equivalent
   • or make your own: crush toasted sesame seeds in a mortar/pestle or food processor, combine with rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, kewpie mayo, honey, some kind of mustard to taste.
3. top with additional crunchy elements like sesame seeds, fried onions, and furikake

you’re telling me a sesame made this slaw?

the star of my salad prep is my trusty mandoline <3 i got this one as a gift from my mom and it’s super useful, although i use the slicing attachments much more than the grating ones. i’ll usually prep all the ingredients for a salad once i get home from the grocery since it’s a breeze with the mandoline, and store them in tupperwares/deli containers with a paper towel to absorb moisture. to make day-of assembly even quicker and minimize dishes, i cut the tomatoes in half directly into the bowl with kitchen shears, you just have to be careful not to splatter yourself (i like to think i’ve gotten better at this with time).

caprese salad

1. combine slices of heirloom tomato with fresh mozzarella or bocconcini and torn basil
2. top with olive oil, flaky sea salt, black pepper, and balsamic vinegar (vinegar is optional tbh)

i love you california produce i love you [redacted] farmer’s market two blocks from my house i love you summertime!

p5 winter salad

1. prep fruit: slice persimmons into wedges, peel pomegranate (beware splatter), and slice pears
2. make vinaigrette from whole grain mustard, apple cider vinegar or red wine vinegar, olive oil, and orange juice
3. toss with arugula and dressing, and add shaved parmesan and chopped pistachios

i made this for a friendsgiving potluck last year and wish i’d taken a better photo but i’m quite happy with how this came out. this can definitely be prepped in components but it would be annoying to process the pear to prevent browning, honestly you can take the pear away without losing much but i was feeling the winter salad fantasy when i was grocery shopping ok…..

classic tuna salad

1. combine canned tuna with kewpie mayo, mustard, capers, sweet pickles, lemon juice, and whatever allium you have on hand (usually pickled red onion and/or scallions)
2. PROFIT. (eat by itself or over toast with cheese)

canned tuna the loml. during lockdown i had to try really hard not to give myself mercury poisoning because it was the most convenient thing to buy and i wanted to eat it every day. even last week i bought a like 12-pack of canned tuna at costco only to realize i already had multiple cans in my pantry LOL

panzanella

adapted from serious eats

1. cube stale bread into 1 inch cubes and toss with oil, salt, and pepper, then toast lightly in the oven or air fryer (about 15 min at 350º F)
2. in a bowl, whisk together minced garlic, mustard, red wine vinegar, and olive oil
3. combine chopped heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, and (pickled) red onions and toss with bread cubes and dressing

panzanella ella ella eh eh eh eh…. this is best after a few hours of marinating because the salt will draw the juices out of the tomatoes, and the bread will get properly saturated without disintegrating. you can definitely eat it for a few days if you don’t mind the bread getting extremely mushy by the end but i think the ideal use case for this is a summer dinner party or potluck. this was one of the first meals i made when i moved to california and also made it onto the midsummer feast menu i made for kevin and isha’s housewarming in 2022!!

chinese cucumber salad

1. chop seedless cucumbers into chunks (you can halve/quarter the cuke vertically and chop them into spears, or use an oblique cut as described below)
2. mix together soy sauce, chinkiang vinegar or rice wine vinegar, laoganma, sesame oil, sugar, and minced garlic
3. add cucumbers to the dressing and toss with sesame seeds, cilantro, and green onion

you’re technically supposed to smash the cucumbers to break them into pieces but there’s something wrong with me and every time i try i just end up banging my knife uselessly against the vegetable :/

cold dressed tofu

1. slice silken tofu over rice, cucumbers, cabbage, or just on a plate
2. mix together soy sauce, chinkiang vinegar or rice wine vinegar, laoganma, sesame oil, sugar, and minced garlic
3. add cilantro and green onion to the dressing and muddle them so they get a little bruised
4. spoon over tofu and top with sesame seeds

crudites with caesar dressing

1. cut celery, carrots, cucumbers, and bell peppers into spears
2. blend anchovies, egg yolks, mustard, minced garlic, lemon juice, and parmesan in a food processor or immersion blender to make the caesar dressing. slowly drizzle in olive oil while blending.
   • if the emulsion breaks, whisk mayo and/or additional egg yolks in a separate bowl, then slowly drizzle the broken sauce in while whisking
3. serve crunchy veg with cured meats like salami and mortadella for a light summer dinner!

cooked salads

harissa carrot salad

1. simmer chopped carrots for about 10 min until slightly more tender than raw but still crunchy
2. drain and dress with harissa, lemon juice, honey, garlic, ginger, cumin, and cilantro
   • optional but the actual star of the show if you can find or make it: finely chopped preserved lemon adds a really nice/distinctive flavor, and you can add the brine to the dressing instead of salting. otherwise i think lemon zest and a lot of juice would do the trick
3. you can eat right away but it’s not as good. it’s an ideal fridge salad because it tastes best when marinated for at least a day. top with sesame seeds before eating!

i like to cut my carrots into an oblique shape like this for most purposes, but i also think this would work well with a julienne, and i’ve made it in the past like in this photo with carrot rounds (though that shape is less satisfying to me because at some point you have to make them into semicircles). i picked up this method of cutting carrots in my foodservice days, though i change the angle of my knife as i’m cutting instead of rolling the carrot. it’s still very efficient and the diagonal cut makes it easier to get roughly even sized pieces as the carrot increases in width (you can halve or quarter the carrot vertically at its thickest).

arugula chickpea tahini salad

adapted from smitten kitchen

1. simmer 1 cup green lentils until cooked, about 30 mins
2. combine several spoonfuls of tahini, lots of lemon juice, minced garlic, olive oil, coriander, and cumin for the dressing, and add water to thin out
3. toss lentils, 1 can chickpeas, and thinly sliced (and/or pickled) red onion with tahini dressing
4. add arugula and top with feta and toasted sesame seeds. i would maybe store these separately from the main chickpea/lentil mixture though arugula is hardy enough to survive getting mixed in for a few days!

i don’t have good lentil intuition because i didn’t eat them for the first time until i was 20 years old, but they’re very cheap and easy to cook and i love their shape/texture so i want to explore more! also who knows ao3 user PULSES <3 the first time i made this per original recipe it looked awful and the dressing was way too excessive/gloppy even with an extra can of chickpeas? i must have fudged the recipe too close to the sun.. but it’s a delicious dressing so in subsequent renditions i’ve added greens to absorb the extra liquid.

lentil potato salad

adapted from smitten kitchen

1. simmer 1 cup green lentils until cooked, about 30 mins
2. simmer fingerling potatoes or other waxy potatoes in salted water until slightly tender, about 15 mins
3. quick-pickle chopped shallots in red wine vinegar, then whisk in whole grain mustard, minced garlic, and olive oil
4. stir chopped pickles, capers, and scallions into the dressing
5. drain and chop potatoes, toss with lentils and dressing, and top with parsley

i like to get fingerling or small yellow potatoes for potato salad because even if you overboil them a little, they don’t get crumbly or mushy and that makes them very easy to slice up while hot.

balsamic corn potato salad

1. simmer fingerling potatoes or other waxy potatoes in salted water until slightly tender, about 15 mins
2. drain and chop potatoes, toss with cherry tomatoes, canned corn, and basil
3. dress with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and honey

had a version of this at a family friend’s house when i was very young and recreated it many years later for the nostalgia factor. like most potato salads it will be better after sitting in the fridge for a day (the tomatoes/corn will release a lot of liquid so it can also be good served over greens to soak it up)

sun-dried tomato potato salad

1. simmer fingerling potatoes or other waxy potatoes in salted water until slightly tender, about 15 mins
2. the star here is the oil from a jar of sun-dried tomatoes: in a food processor or immersion blender, blend tomato oil with kewpie mayo, red wine vinegar, mustard, garlic, and like 1/3 of the sun-dried tomatoes to make an aioli
3. drain and chop the potatoes and add capers, sweet pickles, red bell pepper, parsley, dill, and the rest of the sun-dried tomatoes

i want to make this again soon, it’s one of the recipes i am proudest of!! i first made it the night before a sleepover with friends back in 2021 and had thought at dinner that it was only Okay, but when i was eating it later at midnight kind of drunk i was like wait a minute…. you just have to be patient with potato salads. sun-dried tomatoes are such a concentrated shot of umami, i’ve only ever used this dressing for potato salad but it would also hit in a variety of other applications: as a dip for veg/crudites, on toast with mortadella, atop a roast potato dish, in a breakfast sandwich, etc. i can imagine the oil would also make a delicious creamy sauce for pasta if you can get it to emulsify properly.

works in progress

egg salad

eggs tend to be volatile on my personal food ranking (great when they’re great but have a real tendency to become evil to me without warning) which makes egg salad a little risky even when it’s objectively good. i really just want to find a good egg salad recipe because it’s so easily packable as a sandwich for lunch with such a delightful cross section – i’ve tried a yogurt based one in the past which tasted weird, and recently tried this recipe from just one cookbook which was too crumbly and freaked me out as a result. i think i would like something with an acidic or spiced profile (like mustard or curry flavored) to cut the richness of so many eggs.

green goddess souvla dupe

souvla in sf has this delightful chicken salad with a creamy herb dressing, shaved fennel, and orange wedges and i tried once to imitate it meal prep style but kind of flopped. i think my rookie mistake was using nonfat greek yogurt for the dressing – in the future i will try either full-fat or some mixture of sour cream/mayo. AVOCADO would also be delicious blended in after all we are in california… i will also consider marinating/roasting the chicken and adding feta

wild rice sweetgreen dupe

in these times one must be one’s own antizionist sweetgreen. i like the idea of a grain you can have cold or warm, i don’t think i’ve ever actually cooked wild rice before! i haven’t attempted this yet but in order to replicate the specific salad i’m thinking of i think i would 1) cook wild rice in chicken stock, 2) prep cucumbers/carrots/cabbage, 3) roast chicken thigh in a spice marinade, 4) make a cilantro lime dressing, 5) combine with arugula.

lox bagel salad

i conceptualized and attempted this salad for my family’s christmas eve dinner (we’re not religious just chinese and because our schedules never line up for any of the new years this has become our de facto celebratory holiday meal). which is why it was even more disappointing that this was only okay. like who am i if i don’t make the best dish at the dinner party, never mind that this is literally a meal for five people and also again we’re chinese. like girl are your 27 years of weird parental baggage and food hangups at dinner with us right now? (yes)

anyway the idea was to replicate the flavors/textures of a lox bagel, with smoked salmon cubes, feta cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, capers, and dill. i made a dill/honey mustard based vinaigrette with the salmon in mind, but didn’t get it right and it ended up being a little too acidic – honestly idk if that was even the right direction to go in? i have to go back to the drawing board and think about it.

tomato cucumber feta salad

this was pretty yummy but got super watery in later days even though i did my best to pre-salt/drain the cucumbers. i think in the future i would chop the cucumbers instead of thinly slicing them… and cube the feta and store it separately instead of crumbling it in.

beet and lentil salad

ruby tandoh had the great idea of adding clementines to the beet/lentil/cheese combo, but the baked halloumi in her cookbook recipe was kind of texturally weird, so i think it’s best to stick with goat cheese (tried and true pairing). i also still haven’t figured out what the easiest/most reliable way to roast the beets is?

fruit salad

it’s just so fun and special to eat a lot of fruits at once! and a luxury since i usually only have one kind of fruit on hand at a time. fruit is already so sweet that it feels extra to add more sugar in the form of a syrup, but i guess that’s also the most efficient way to add fun flavors like ginger or herbs or to balance out lemon/lime juice for the anti-browning factor. i once bought a box of mandarin orange cups from costco and had them in this delightful (undressed) salad but they haven’t been stocked the last few times i’ve gone…