Thai Chicken Salad With Peanut Chili Dressing

While at work, rolling up some Thai-Vietnamese summer rolls–those delicious, fresh, light appetizers made from rice paper wrappers filled with crisp bean sprouts, fragrant herbs, earthy bean sprouts, rice noodles, and for non-vegetarians, shrimp, I came up with an idea for a nice, cooling salad to run as a dinner special later.

It came about like this–I had made a spicy peanut sauce for dipping the rolls, and included some lovely Thai marinated cucumber and red onion salad with each order of rolls, just to give a different flavor and texture to the appetizer. And I happened to have a bite of summer roll dipped in the peanut sauce then popped a bit of cucumber which was marinated in a dressing made of lime juice, palm sugar, fish sauce, fresh ginger, mint, Thai basil, and Thai bird chilies.

(Before we continue, let’s talk a bit about palm sugar. It is made from the sap of the coconut palm, and it has a sticky, half-liquid texture. Sold in jars in Asian markets, it is used a great deal in Thai cookery. It has a subtle flavor–like the way a nice sweet flower smells, but without the tooth-aching sweetness that cane sugar has. You can use raw sugar to substitute for it, but I would try the palm sugar anyway. I like it better, and it isn’t hard to find, nor is it too expensive.)

The two flavors and textures went off in my mouth like an firecracker. The sweet, hot and sour cuke was icy yet filled with the heat of the chilies and ginger, while the creamy, sweet and earthy peanut sauce tamed the flames. I thought about it and decided that I needed to use those two flavors in a chicken salad, and soon.

So, Tuesday, today, I set out to put my idea into action.

I made the same lime and fish sauce based marinade as I had done for the red onions and cucumbers on Saturday, and this time, I tossed two different salads in it. One was composed of paper-thin cucumber slices and red onion slices as before, but with the addition of see-through slices of radish. The other was made from poached, shredded and chilled chicken. These went into the refrigerator to chill down to a delectable, nearly frozen temperature, while I put together the dipping sauce turned salad dressing.

This peanut sauce is simplicity itself–it consists of four ingredients, but the finished product is so tasty, everyone who tastes it will think you are a culinary genius. And, really, there is no reason to disabuse them of that belief. Just smile and accept the accolades that will pour out to you from satisfied eaters.

All you have to do is take equal parts hoisin sauce, and natural peanut butter–that being peanut butter with nothing but peanuts and salt in it, and blend them together with a tiny amount of rice vinegar–about 1/4 cup per two cups each of the hoisin and peanut butter. Then, you add sriracha sauce to taste, and thin it all out with water until it is the right consistency for a salad dressing–liquidy, but not runny, in other words.

For crunch and a crisp, earthy flavor, I added ice cold romaine lettuce and mung bean sprouts, and for a garnish, a sprinkling of peanuts and a sprig of Thai basil.

It turned out to be an amazingly refreshing light entree salad for the hot, dry late July days of Southeastern Ohio.

But I bet it would be good any time, and anywhere that you are faced with a day that is too hot to bother with either cooking or eating.

And it is all easy.

And–it is pretty low in fat. The only fat you get is from the chicken, which if you start with poached boneless, skinless breasts, will be negligible, and the peanut butter. And if you use natural peanut butter, it will be the plain old monounsaturated peanut oil that is in peanuts, which is actually good for you. There is a lot of fiber and vitamins in this salad, so not only is it good–it is good for you, in many ways.

Yet, it tastes both refreshing and sinful at the same time.

What is not to like?

Thai Chicken Salad With Peanut Chili Dressing
Ingredients:

1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons–to taste–palm sugar or raw cane sugar
1/3 cup fish sauce–use Golden Boy or Squid brand for the best flavor
2-7 thinly sliced Thai bird chilies–to taste
2″ cube fresh young ginger, peeled and sliced in very thin jullienne
1/8 cup finely minced fresh Thai basil
2 tablespoons finely minced fresh mint
3 large cucumbers, well scrubbed
1 large red onion, peeled and thinly sliced
10 sweet red radishes, tops and bottoms sliced away and cut into paper-thin slices
1 pound poached chicken, shredded and well chilled
1/2 cup natural peanut butter
1/2 cup hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
Sriracha sauce to taste
1 large head romaine lettuce, washed, dried and cut into thin strips
2 cups really fresh mung bean sprouts, rinsed and dried
1/3 cup really good roasted, salted peanuts
4 sprigs of fresh Thai basil

Method:

Mix together the first seven ingredients, and stir until the palm sugar dissolves. Taste for seasoning–you may like it sweeter or hotter. Adjust accordingly–the flavors should be a perfect balance between sweet, hot, sour and salty.

Split this marinade in half and put into two medium sized bowls.

Slice the cucumbers in half longitudinally, and scrape out the seeds with a teaspoon. Slice them paper thin into little half-moons, and put them, the red onions and radishes into one of the bowls of marinade, and toss to combine. Cover tightly and put in the fridge to get it ice cold.

Take the shredded poached chicken and toss in the other bowl of marinade, then cover tightly and put in the fridge. While these are chilling, put the next four ingredients, from the peanut butter to the sriracha sauce, into a food processor or blender and blend until combined. Taste and adjust as needed–add more vinegar for more tang, and more sriracha for more heat. For more sweetness, add a spoonful of hoisin sauce, and for more peanuttiness, add the peanut butter. When the flavor is the way you like it, turn the machine on and blend in water while it is running, a little at a time, to get the dressing to a pourable consistency. Go slowly–you don’t want it to be too thin!

When the vegetables and chicken are very cold, split up the sliced lettuce into four equal portions and layer them onto the bottom of serving plates.

Sprinkle equal amounts of bean sprouts over the lettuce, then put a layer of the marinated vegetables over that. Top the vegetables with a dollup of chicken on each plate, and then drizzle with the dressing. Sprinkle peanuts over everything and garnish with a sprig of basil, and serve some extra peanut dressing on the side.

Serves four for a light lunch or dinner.

How Local Can You Realistically Go?

I want you to look at that delicious bowl of pasta pictured here.

This is what I tossed together for dinner tonight, because it was quick, easy and nutritious, and all of the ingredients except the pasta, olive oil, salt, Parmesan cheese and Aleppo pepper were local.

Very local, in fact–everything else was grown right here in Athens county.

The onions, squash and garlic came from Rich Tomsu’s organic farm. Shade River farm supplied the organic sweet pepper, tomato and fennel. Green Edge Gardens, another organic farm, grew the fresh shiitakes, and the absolutely delicious chicken breast (one, shared between four people and a baby) came from Bridlewood Acres. Oh, and the chevre was made by Chris Schmiel of Integration Acres, and the spot of cream that went into the sauce came from Snowville Creamery, which is one county over from us in Meigs county.

And the wedding bouquet-sized bundle of basil that got turned into pesto came from up on my deck. I have so much of growing so lushly up there I swear you’d never know I cut any.

So, what is my point, other than bragging about how grand it is to live in Athens, Ohio in the summer where you can get amazingly fresh, delicious, organic food?

Well, it is this. With all the local goodies I listed above, we ate organic pasta.

From somewhere else. (And I have no idea where–it is a product of the USA, but there is no telling where the wheat was grown. Probably in several different states.)

And ounce for ounce, we ate just as much pasta as we did everything else.

So truly, while we can eat like kings on the local bounty here in Athens, there are still significant gaps in our food supply–it is difficult to impossible to find locally grown staples such as grains and grain products and dried beans. This is not only a problem here in Athens–it is endemic to the way in which the United States food supply works. Staples tend to be grown in large farms which practice monoculture, with each staple being grown wherever the climate is best for it, and then it is shipped all over the country, and the world, for that matter, after they are harvested and processed.

But a pair of farmers here in Athens wants to study the feasibility of growing staple grains and legumes here in Athens county, and the USDA has given them a grant to do just that.

Brandon Jaeger and Michelle Ajamian are using a grant from the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) project of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), to test the feasibility of growing staple crops such as grains and beans in southeast Ohio.

According to the Athens News’ front page feature story, the first crops to be tested during the next two growing seasons include buckwheat, millet, amaranth and quinoa, plus azuki beans, a highly nutritious Asian type of legume, and flour corn. Both the beans and corn are growing this year, and the pair plan to sell the corn to The Village Bakery where it will be ground and made into fresh tortillas.

I applaud Jaeger and Ajamian’s work, and I hope that they have good results and high yields in their test plots. I’d love to be able to buy locally grown grains and beans myself, and I am hoping that what they discover with these varieties will be applicable to the growing of more familiar staple crops such as wheat, oats and any number of native dried bean varieties.

In fact, the only flaw I can see in their plan, is that while I love quinoa and azuki beans myself, I hardly think it is likely that a bunch of Athenians switching from eating pasta made from wheat and refried beans made from pintos or black beans to the more esoteric varieties these farmers are testing. Sure, the adventurous vegetarians, vegans and hippies among us will dive in with gusto, but the more conventional sorts will likely pass these offerings by, no matter how nutritious they are.

For one thing, not many people know how to cook quinoa, amaranth, or millet.

Cornmeal, we know from, but millet–to most Appalachians, that stuff is birdseed.

And, local these grains and beans might be, but I know that I won’t give up my rice or my red beans for anyone, because, well–I like them too darned much. (And the likelihood of anyone successfully growing rice in Athens county is pretty low, so I figure that one of my non-local foods is just going to have to be rice.)

But the point is, as much as I love trying new things and being an adventurous cook, I doubt I would ever, unless forced into it, switch from eating wheat, rice and corn-based foods to the lesser known grains listed above.

I might integrate these ingredients into my pantry, but they would be additions, not substitutions, for the staple items already in place.

My solution is this–in addition to trying out the new and different staple foods, why not continue the experiment with more familiar grains and beans?

I know for a fact that wheat grows pretty well in Ohio, and I figure that since our second largest cash crop in this state is soybeans, why not try to grow some pinto beans, black turtle beans or red beans. Horticultural beans grow beautifully here, and they dry perfectly, as do Christmas limas–I still have some in my pantry grown by a local farmer last year, so why not give other, more familiar legumes a shot, too?

That said, I wish these intrepid farmers luck and a grand harvest. I hope that they do find a combination of staple grains and beans we can grow easily here in southeastern Ohio, ones that are not only nutritious and delicious, but also familiar enough to the average eater and cook to give them a try.

Oh, and look for a recipe for the pasta dish above tomorrow!

Bonus Weekend Kat Blogging: Cute Pictures

Zak took this picture of Kat looking at her reflection in our refrigerator.

She is fascinated with reflections of herself, cats and other people. She kisses reflections all the time, of herself or of the cats. It is really, really cute to watch.

Now that she walks, she toddles from the refrigerator to the dishwasher, with Delia following her, both of them looking at their reflections. Or, she holds a fresh stalk of catnip for Delia to play with, while I cook dinner or wash up dishes. It makes it much easier for me to get things done.

This photograph was taken last Sunday on the green at OU, where Kat and cousin Zoe were playing in the grass. They are very affectionate with each other, and uncle Dan caught a great picture of the two of them hugging.

I think that Kat getting to observe Zoe walking around is what tipped the scales into her walking on her own, without support. I think she needed to see another baby doing it to gain the confidence to try.

It will be fun to see them play the next time they get together, because both of them will be walking really well by them.

I can hardly wait!

Weekend Kat Blogging: Baby Percussionist

Kat loves music; I’ve already posted pictures of her playing flute while Zak plays didgeridoo, and pictures of her playing flute solo. And you have seen lots of pictures of her playing guitar, too.

But her interest in playing music is not limited to the instruments her daddy plays–two nights ago, Dan was over visiting and he brought his cajon out and started drumming with it along with Zak’s flute and guitar. (Yes, Zak uses a looper in order to play both guitar and flute at the same time. It’s really cool.) As you can see, the cajon is a wooden box that has a sound hole in the back and has guitar strings across the front face of it on the inside that give the drum a bit of a snare sound. You play it like a hand drum while you sit on it, as Dan is doing.

Kat danced around and watched him play, then looked about and found a cardboard box, crawled up on top of it, sat down and started drumming on it with her hands, in perfect imitation of what Dan was doing.

Then she scooted herself and her little cardboard cajon across the floor to sit in front of Dan so she could observe what he was doing better. They played together like that for quite a while, before Kat got tired of the game and brought me several books to read to her.

And in further Kat news–she is finally walking fairly consistently. Zak called me at work last night to tell me, “I think I can safely say that we officially have a toddler on our hands now–I’m making her dinner, and she is walking laps around the kitchen, dining room and back hall.”

So, this morning, when I took her to the farmer’s market where Zak was playing flute, I took her out of the stroller where Zak had set up in the shade, and she danced a bit while he played. Then, she amused herself by sitting next to the farmer’s dog who was in the shade near Zak’s music spot. The dog, named Doc, was so sweet–Kat was in love. She got to hug him and get doggy kisses while he just lay in the shade and accept all of the baby love she would give him.

So that is the news in Kat’s life!

The Miracle of Green

I thought that we were going to be able to terrace the back yard into a workable garden space this year; alas, however, the intractable slope remains intact. The French drains that keep the water run-off from turning our grassy hill into a mudslide have collapsed, resulting in a bog at the top of the hill. So, we are having new drainage installed, as is everyone else who lives at the top of this hill–the neighbors on both sides are having it done, as well as folks up the hill a ways further. It has been a very wet spring and summer, and so it makes sense to deal with the drainage issues.

So, once again, I am gardening exclusively on our deck. However, instead of my usual mixture of decorative and food plants, this time around, I am growing only food, and am surprised at the amount of plants I can grow on the deck.

I have a dozen Thai chili plants, forty basil plants of various sorts–four different varieties in total, a handful of different herb plants, seven large tomato plants, and about forty gai lan plants poking their little sprouty selves up out of the dirt. Last week, I also sowed about twenty methi plants, a bunch of cilantro seed, a potful of mizuna and around the gai lan, which is in a whiskey barrel planter (cut in half longitudinally and set on its side in a cradle which keeps it from rocking), I have sown a lot of baby Shanghai bok choi seeds. I also have ordered another large planter to sow with more gai lan and baby bok choi.

I am amazed at how prolific the garden is, and last night, I took the first harvest from it–a huge bouquet of Siam Queen Thai basil and five Thai bird chilies, which I used in my favorite summer dish: Spicy Thai Basil Chicken. Tomorrow night when I come home from work, I will harvest a big bouquet of Italian basil and make pesto, the first of many batches from my own garden.

There are dozens of clusters of tiny green tomatoes, looking like jade beads, dangling from the five-foot high (and still growing) tomato vines. Kat and I watch them greedily, waiting for them to ripen. There are four different varieties of grape/cherry tomatoes–a green one, a black one, a yellow one and a red and yellow striped one, and then there are three roma type paste tomatoes, called San Marzano. The vines of the plants are amazingly strong–stronger than the ones I planted last year–I planted these tomatoes very deeply in the planter, so that roots grew out of the stems I buried in the compost, peat moss and soil mixture in the self-watering planter. This practice, which I read about last year, creates a stronger, more wide-reaching root system which helps to anchor the plant well and also helps the plant survive drought better, although, unlike last year, this year, lack of rain hardly seems to be the problem. (We’ll see how August goes–that is usually the driest month in our part of Ohio.)

It is always amazing to me how well compost and other organic fertilizers, such as livestock manure and fish, bone or blood meal, feed plants and help them to grow strong and healthy. I overcrowd my plants in the garden–the kindest way to put it is that I garden intensively, though truthfully, it is not just that I admire and emulate the work of John Jeavons, but because I am lazy and hate mulching and weeding. The thing is, if you crowd your plants together in a container or even in the ground itself, the plants grow together and their leaves form a perfect canopy, shading the roots, which not only discourages the growth of weeds (weed seeds are triggered to sprout by the sun), but helps to retain water. It isn’t as efficient as mulching, but then mulch isn’t always the be-all and end-all of gardening–it can harbor mice, slugs, mold and other plant killers. In very wet weather like we have been having, it can trap too much water, leading to root rot and worse, so this year, I don’t feel quite so lazy about going mulch-free.

Right now, my favorite bit of the garden is the half of a whiskey barrel that is serving as a seedbed for gai lan, baby bok choi and methi.

I got tired of not being able to get farmers around here to grow these vegetables consistently, so I decided to up and do it myself. Why not? I had the whiskey barrel empty–it usually harbored a garden of coleus plants–and I had some seeds. The fenugreek (methi) seeds I had were from the Indian market, and they were meant to be ground up and used as a spice. Instead, I soaked them for twenty-four hours, then laid the mushy seeds on damp paper towels, then covered them in another layer of damp paper towels and set them on a cookie sheet in a sunny window for about four days, dampening the towels twice daily. On the third day, I took the top towel off and let the sprouts which were springing forth grow upward toward the light.

The next day, I transferred the strongest sprouts, of which there were around forty or so, to the whiskey barrel and to various pots. The soil was light and friable, amended well with compost, manure and fish meal, and so far, even though right after I planted the tiny things, we had a huge thunderstorm with heavy downpours, the methi plant babies are going strong, putting out roots and working on making true leaves.

The gai lan has already started putting out true leaves, and I will have to thin it soon. But I am still waiting for the cilantro, bok choi and mizuna to sprout.

I can’t wait to see how well they do.

I promise to continue to blog about my green miracles on the deck as they grow and as I harvest, as well as chronicling the delicacies I make from them.

In the meantime, for those who want to grow their own Asian vegetables, you can get seeds for many varieties of greens, roots and herbs from Evergreen Seeds. They ship quickly and their prices are great.