Asian Salad from Food Network Magazine, January/February 2011

Some time ago I read a comment that someone had posted on another blog with an "Asian" dish. The commenter was Asian and politely blasted the use of the word Asian to describe any dish that uses soy sauce (a loose but accurate paraphrase of the entire comment). Since that time I've been very careful to call these sorts of dishes Asian-inspired and usually I even cringe when doing that.

So, please realize that calling this an Asian Salad is not my idea. Yes, it contains rice vinegar, soy sauce, sesame seeds, ginger, and sesame oil, all of which are found in Asian cooking. I'm not so sure about the jalapeno though.  This is definitely one of those salads that is Asian-inspired but American-born and raised.

The recipe is easy enough that it's just a small paragraph on a page where advertising takes up more room than the three recipes of sides and salads that are there. The picture is beautiful though. The vegetables pristine in color, not brown-hued like my picture, which is what happened when the soy sauce-based dressing hit (methinks yon magazine didn't take an after picture, just the before).

Simply put English cucumber (ok, another not Asian ingredient), jicama (non-Asian ingredient as well), carrot, and celery are supposed to be cut into matchsticks. Baby corn is quartered lengthwise and added to the matchsticks. The dressing is mixed and drizzled on top, then everything is tossed together.

Sarcasm aside, the salad is very tasty and refreshing. The flavors in the dressing blend well without being heavy and overpowering the vegetables. As far as they go, I like each one and enjoyed them all together in a salad of this sort.

The only thing that I would have done differently is roughly grate the vegetables instead of making matchsticks. I tried to make the size of the vegetables as thin as possible with the knife, but still felt like I was trying to stuff a porcupine in my mouth with every bite. Definitely not bite-sized food. Shredding the vegetables with a food processor might be a better idea. Matchsticks are just too big when dealing with vegetables as firm as carrots and jicama.

Dudette liked this as well, especially eating it like finger food. Hubby didn't try it because, well, it's vegetables. Raw ones at that. The only salad I've ever seen him eat with gusto is my Dad's French salad, which is the best in the whole dang world.

So, this salad does get a big thumbs up with reservations on preparation method and hopes that you'll use a different name or at least put "-inspired" after the word Asian.