This week I’m posting recipes for two Japanese favorites. Really, more like two Japanese restaurant favorites. The salad with carrot-ginger dressing seems to appear at a lot of sushi places, though I don’t think I’ve ever eaten it as part of an “authentic” Japanese meal. The first time I tried it was about 15 years ago at Dojo’s, near NYU. I wanted to lick my bowl clean it was so good.
Miso soup is a cornerstone to any Japanese meal, authentic or not. This version, with sweet potatoes, also started with a memory. My mother and I went to visit a dear friend who was seriously ill. We prepared him dinner, including miso soup with roasted sweet potatoes. If I have ever seen a face transformed by a taste it was certainly then. He recalled how, as a young man in Japan during the 1950s, he was warmed up in the winters by hot sweet potatoes he bought from the satsuma-imo pushcart vendors.
Recipe: Green Salad with Carrot-Ginger Dressing
Serves 4 (makes about ½ cup dressing)
Preparation time: 10 minutes
1 medium carrot, peeled and roughly chopped
1 tablespoon minced ginger
1 tablespoon mirin
2 teaspoons rice vinegar
½ teaspoon Kosher salt, plus more to taste if necessary
¼ cup grapeseed oil, or other neutral vegetable oil
¼ teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1 small to medium head Romaine lettuce, washed and chopped (about 5 cups) (See How to Quickly Trim a Head of Romaine for Salad)
Optional: cherry tomatoes and thinly sliced daikon radish, or other fresh vegetables cut into bite-size pieces
- Place carrot, ginger, mirin, rice vinegar, and salt in a small blender or in a cup wide enough to accommodate an immersion blender. Blend well, into a coarse puree.
- In a slow, steady stream begin to add oils while continuing to blend. Stop blender when dressing is smooth and emulsified. Adjust seasoning to taste.
- Place lettuce on a salad platter, drizzle dressing over it and garnish with fresh vegetables. (If you prefer, you can toss the lettuce with the dressing. The benefit is that the dressing will be more evenly distributed, but I think this bright orange dressing looks better drizzled on top.)
Recipe: Miso Soup with Roasted Japanese Sweet Potatoes
Makes about 4 servings.
30 minutes
1 small Japanese sweet potato, or ‘satsuma-imo’ or ‘yaki-imo,’ cut into small cubes (I keep the skin on). You can also substitute Jewel sweet potatoes which are more readily available in the U.S.
1 tablespoon grapeseed oil, or other neutral cooking oil
Pinch Kosher salt
One batch hot dashi stock (See How to Make Dashi)
About ¼ cup white miso paste (the amount you needs varies by the brand you buy; some have a more concentrated flavor than others)
6 ounces silken tofu, cut into small cubes
About 6 scallions, cut into small slices
- Preheat oven to 425°F. Toss sweet potatoes in oil, season lightly with salt, and spread on a baking sheet. Roast until cooked through and lightly browned in spots, about 15 minutes.
- In the meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, blend miso paste into dashi: put the miso paste in a soup ladle. Tip the ladle into the dashi to allow some of it to flow in with the miso. With chopsticks or a miniature whisk, blend the dashi and miso together. When the miso has been fully incorporated into the dashi and the mixture is smooth, stir it in with the rest of the dashi.
- Set up four miso soup bowls or into 6- to 8-ounce teacups. Distribute tofu, scallions, and cooked sweet potato among the bowls. Ladle hot miso over them. If you have small lids that will fit on top, place them on top and serve.
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