Have a Salad Adventure

For many years, I never looked at cooking as an adventure, but thank goodness that changed. My husband’s love of food and talents as a cook excited me about food. Then the gift of my learning about Indian cuisine piqued my interest further in the art of melding ingredients into tasty delights. For some years now I’ve been enamored by the deli counter at Puget Sound Consumer Cooperatives (natural food stores through the Pacific Northwest). They do amazing things with salads. I’ve been known to reverse engineer several of their salads as the ingredients are on the labels. Then I discovered that they will kindly print out and provide a copy of a salad’s recipe upon request. The recipes are in amount that may yield 10 lbs. but, hey, I can do simple arithmetic.

Sometimes I wander over to the Fremont PCC and browse. They have the best buy on Patak’s Curry Paste, a staple for my Indian food adventures. Their vegetable department is beautiful and tempting. I particularly love the bulk food section. I’ve got recipes for salads that include unusual grains. When is the last time you made a salad with Faro? It’s a chewy form of wheat and makes for a great texture. I’ve learned to love Quinoa mixed together with a tangy Italian dressing I make, chopped cucumber and chopped tomatoes. 

The other day I needed a diversion so I wandered PCC. There in the deli counter was a new salad. I tasted it and loved it. It had some ingredients I didn’t own and for which I had no other recipes. I realized,  though, if I owned them I could remake this salad a number of times. It’s a Saturday morning, breakfast is completed and I indulged myself in concocting my new salad. I’m munching on it now. It’s as tasty as I remember and the first time I’ve created something including miso.

My new and tasty salad Sesame-Miso Cucumber Salad has toasted sesame seeds, miso, rice vinegar, honey, hot water, toasted sesame oil, and red pepper flakes blended together into which chunks of English cucumber is marinated.

So, the next time you are at PCC or another market with diverse and interesting salads in their deli, have fun, reverse engineer the salad, ask for the recipe (or check on the Internet) I found a version of the salad at this site: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/sesame-miso-cucumber-salad-50400000111965/
so who knows from where it emerged. I used 1/4 cup sesame seeds, 1/4 cup miso, 2 Tablespoons of vinegar, honey, hot water and sesame oil and 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper.

Photo: John Autry; Styling: Cindy Barr