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Tag Archives: tamarind

Rojak salad; tangy, spicy and sweet

07 Wednesday May 2014

Posted by Zoli in gluten free, healthy, Malaysian, salad, Sauces, Singaporean, spices, Street food, vegan, Vegetarian

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

palm sugar, pineapple and cucumber salad, rojak salad, sambal oelek, southeast asian salad, tamarind

vegetarian rojak salad

I first heard of this in a book called Crazy Rich Asians. The heroine was visiting Singapore with her boyfriend and tried this spicy pineapple and cucumber salad in some kind of crazy food court. The best thing about this book was reading about all the (for me) new food. Rojak salad seemed like an approachable recipe for a self-taught homey cook like me. I put down the book and pulled out what I had–cucumber, peanuts, pineapple, tofu, check. Missing: fresh red chilies, palm sugar, tamarind. What the hell, I thought, and squirted some sriracha into the dressing. Um, nope. The salad was edible—a little tasty but a little weird too.

So this time around, after my spice cupboard and fridge and pantry are fairly well-stocked with all sorts of magical things, I did it right. Always the best way. Unless I’ve made a dish a thousand times before, I’m just not the kind of cook who can mess around and bing, zap, boom, voila! I really do have to take my time and concentrate when it comes to new things. Cooking isn’t fun when it’s rushed and stressful after all. But if you can get all zen and in the present about cooking then it’s a fun adventure and you’re putting more love into what you create.

Success! The salad was splendiferous. Soooo good. My mom helped me gobble it up as soon as it was made and maybe she’s a little biased being as she’s my mom but she said, “This is the way I want to eat.” Another keeper. Huzzah. Next time I’ll make a larger batch and maybe some fried rice to serve with it for a summer meal outside on the deck. Yes, it took a little time, but the end result is tasty perfection. It doesn’t matter that it’s vegetarian/vegan, it’s just really good food. And don’t make the same mistake I did and skip out on any of the important things in the dressing. (Well, I didn’t add shrimp paste to the dressing/sauce which I’m sure takes this to another plane. Vegetarianized, this is still a kick-ass meal.) As for the veggies and fruit, well, rojak means ‘mix’ and, from what I have read, all kinds of things can be mixed into this salad–any fresh fruit you have pretty much.

Ingredients for 2

For the dressing
2 fresh red thai chilies
1 lime
1/4 cup dried tamarind (to make 2 tsp tamarind pulp)
sea salt
2 tsp palm sugar
2 tbs quality soy sauce

For the salad
4 small persian cucumbers or 1 large thin cucumber
1 cup fresh pineapple, cut into bite-size pieces
1/2 celeriac, peeled cut into bite-size pieces
1 green mango, diced (I didn’t have this)
1/2 block (or more if you like) of extra firm tofu, cut into bite-size pieces
olive oil for frying
50g chopped peanuts or cashews

1) Start the dressing by soaking the dried tamarind in hot water for 15 minutes. (Prep the other ingredients while this is soaking). Drain the water out. Press the pulp through a fine mesh strainer to squeeze out the pulp. Scrape the bottom of the strainer to get it all.
2) Chop the chilies into small pieces and smash with a pestle and mortar and rough sea salt to help pulverize. I left the seeds in. If you can’t handle much spice you may want to take the seeds out—or out of one chili anyway.
3) Add the juice of one lime, soy sauce, tamarind pulp and palm sugar to the chili mixture and mix to a thick sauce. Taste and adjust seasoning.
4) Chop the cucumber at alternate angles so that you get small, angled chunks of cucumber. Add this to a large bowl along with the other fruits and vegetables.
5) Heat up about 3 tbs of olive oil in a wok and fry the tofu pieces on all sides until nice and crispy. (Or you could buy the puffy, deep-fried tofu that is sold in asian markets and simply add this to the bowl). Drain the crispy tofu on paper towel and add to the bowl of veggies and fruit.
6) Add as much dressing/sauce as you like and mix. (I used all of it.) Serve in two bowls with the ground nuts sprinkled on top. Eat straightaway as the dressing will start to get watery if sitting around for too long.

Enjoy! This is one of my favorites!

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vegetarian rojak salad

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Vegetarian pad thai

09 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by Zoli in gluten free, healthy, pasta, rice noodles, Sauces, Thai, Vegetarian

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

banh pho, tamarind, tofu, Vegetarian pad thai, vegetarian thai

vegetarian pad thai

I’ve been researching authentic pad thai recipes and thinking how I could do a tasty vegetarian version. This was delicious, fun to cook and I learned a lot. I’m adding it to the success folder and next time I’ll make sure it’s even better, if not perfect. This morning I picked up a few missing items—tamarind, bean sprouts and tofu, but it was only when I started prepping that I realized I’d forgotten the preserved daikon radish and I only had green onions, not garlic chives. Dang it! I made it anyway. I mean, what? Give up? There’s always tomorrow for perfection.

For the real thing, I highly recommend this youtube series Hot Thai Kitchen pad thai episode. Also the High Heel Gourmet has a fantastic blog on real Thai cooking and helpful information for the noobs out there (me included).

Vegetarian Pad Thai sauce
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup dried mixed mushrooms (optional)
1/4 cup tamarind sauce or pulp
1/4 cup palm sugar

1) Gently heat up the soy sauce till warm and add the dried mushrooms. Turn off heat and let mushrooms soak in the soy sauce. My thinking was to add a bit extra umami flavor to the sauce as real pad thai has the vital salty flavor of fish sauce and dried shrimp. After 20 minutes, strain the mushrooms out and set aside to use later. Skip the mushrooms if you like and move on to step 2.
2) Gently melt the palm sugar with the soy sauce and tamarind sauce. Do not boil. As soon as sugar has been incorporated turn off the heat and set the sauce aside. This recipe makes a fair portion of sauce so store the rest in a jar in the fridge for future use.

Vegetarian pad thai
Serves 2 as main or 4 as side dish
half bag of pad thai noodles, soaked in water for about an hour
1 shallot, sliced
2 garlic cloves, sliced thinly
1 large bunch garlic chives (or 2 green onions, sliced thinly)
1 block of extra firm tofu (or pressed tofu if you can find it)
1 tbs preserved daikon radish*
Mushrooms from the sauce (see above), strained and chopped.
2 eggs
2 cups fresh bean sprouts
1 tsp (more or less) of red chili flakes
olive oil
water as needed

for garnish
1 lime
garlic chives
fresh bean sprouts
cilantro
red chili flakes
crushed peanuts**

*I had to leave out the radish, so this is definitely not authentic
**A rare day when my pantry of nuts did not include peanuts, so I used cashews

1) Soak the noodles in water for about an hour and prep everything else. Strain the noodles when soft. Cut them with scissors if they are too long.
2) If you do not have the pressed tofu, cut the extra firm tofu into small blocks and fry a couple minutes in oil to crisp up.
3) When the noodles and sauce are ready, heat up 2-3 tbs of oil in a large wok and add the chopped shallot, garlic, and chili flakes and cook for a minute or two on med to med-low heat, stirring.
4) Next add the tofu, mushrooms and radish. Stir and cook another few minutes.
5) Add the noodles, about 4-5 tbs of pad thai sauce and a little water. This is a dry noodle dish but a little water is needed to finish cooking the noodles in the wok.
6) When the noodles are cooked and chewy (NOT mushy), push everything to the side, add a tsp of oil to the wok and drop in the two eggs. Break the yolks and give a slight stir. Let the eggs cook for about 30 seconds and then scoop the noodle mixture on top of them. Let cook a little bit and then use a spatula or tongs to mix everything together.
7) Add the bean sprouts and garlic chives and stir fry another minute.
Serve with extra garlic chives, bean sprouts, crushed peanuts (or cashews in my case), red chili flakes, cilantro and a piece of lime. Do not cut a wedge of lime as you would for a cocktail, but cut off a piece of it from the side. It is easier to squeeze and you get more lime that way. Also it’s traditional!

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