Napa Cabbage Sesame Salad

We're back!

And it's been too long! Have I lost all of my devoted readership? Let me tell you what's up been keeping me from you.

1. A research project for my summer university

2. 2 goodbye parties for said university

3. Pizza consumed during the goodbyes

4. 1 week of cleaning out the fridge

and

5. 12 hours of tasteless, sandy airplane food + 14 hours of overpriced airport food

However, ladies and gents, now that I'm back to on dry ground, I've got no more reasons not to blog and my "to bake" list has increased by a few too many recipes. I'm visiting family in Texas, which means that I'll also have plenty of ingredients to work with. We've got some birthdays (i.e. cakes!) coming up around here, plus isn't Labor Day the best day to make really make good use of all that summer produce?

Over the next week I have another special guest joining us for a blog (did you see TMTP's first guest blog?) and I also have a short mini-series coming up. On top of that I'm planning to review a few foods and restaurants that I've tried recently.

Let me first share one of the recipes with which I was welcomed back to the Lonestar State.* We had this recipe just last night when my aunt came over for dinner. We wanted something light and fresh, and considering that it's August here in the Lonestar State,* it's really too much to ask that we heat up the house with the oven or the stove. My mom originally got this recipe from a restaurant in the Texas Hill Country, and she's since adapted it to make it even better. Napa Cabbage Sesame Salad can really be played with, and I'll offer some tips here. You can make a budget variety, a protein-boosted variety, a carnivorous variety, etc.

Napa Cabbage Sesame Salad

Ingredients

I'm giving the basic ingredients here. See below the recipe method for variations.

for the salad

1 head shredded Napa cabbage

2 oz. toasted nuts

2 oz. toasted sesame seeds

2 packages Ramen noodles

for the vinaigrette dressing

6 oz. peanut oil (that's about 3/4 cup)

6 oz. rice wine vinegar

1 oz. honey

2 oz. sesame oil

salt and pepper to taste

Method

Prepare the salad and nuts. Shred/slice the cabbage, and put it into a large bowl. Toast the nuts and sesame seeds. [Don't know how? Check out this handy chart! Sesame seeds should be toasted at 275 degrees for about 5 minutes. Make sure to give both the seeds and the nuts a few stirs during the toasting process]. Allow them to cool afterward, and put them in a medium bowl. Open the Ramen noodles. Toss the seasoning packages - you won't need them. Crumble the dry noodles into the nuts, and combine.

Make the vinaigrette. Find a jar with a tight-fitting lid. Pour all of the ingredients into it, and shake vigorously to combine. Open the jar, and season with salt and pepper.

Put together the salad. Pour the vinaigrette over the cabbage, and then add the nuts and noodles as well. Toss the salad very well, and then taste and adjust salt and pepper if necessary. This salad is good right away because the ramen will still be crunchy, but it's also good a day later because the cabbage will have become tangy and sweet after absorbing all of the vinaigrette. The cabbage will become a bit droopy though so if you're planning to serve to a group, make the salad the same day you'll be eating it.

Variations:

-Try different types of nuts: I've used cashews, pine nuts, pepitas/pumpkin seeds, and sunflower seeds. Go with sunflower seeds if you're on a budget, pine nuts if you want a classier salad, cashews if you want the nut to really absorb the dressing.

-Vary the vinegar and oil. Wok oil is a spicier sub for sesame oil, and it's a good combination with pepitas. Red wine vinegar and sherry vinegar make tarter replacements for rice wine vinegar.

-Want to make this into a meal? The original recipe called for adding strips of baked or pan-fried chicken. I add spicy soy strips to my salad. You can also add stir-fried tofu chunks. Serve with rice.

-Add a few more veggies. Water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, or slightly sauteed oyster or enoki mushrooms would be great additions.

*I don't really call it that.