Weekend Kat Blogging: The Littlest Locavore

Kat likes coffee.

She always has.

We really have to watch her around our coffee mugs, and teacups, for that matter, because she loves tea as well. (I don’t worry so much about her tasting tea as I do sipping coffee, though.)

Here we see that she has swiped my fair-trade shade-frown coffee, and is taking a nice swig of it.

It is just her way of relaxing after a long morning of sweeping (and flying around, going “whoosh”) with her little broom.

That broom was Morganna’s when she was little, and Kat loves playing with it, especially after she and Zak watched Kiki’s Delivery Service, which is a sweet little animated movie by the great director Hayao Miyazaki. Kiki does a lot of flying around on her broomstick in the film, with her faithful, if cynical black cat familiar, Jiji, and now Kat likes to “fly” around on her broomstick with Zak or I on our other handmade broomstick, and Delia skittering after us. Kat is really good at going “Whooooosh” as we dash around the house.

After all of that whooshing about, it is not surprising at all that Kat needed a sip of coffee.

Yet Another Reason to Dislike The Cook’s Illustrated Family of Publications

Long time readers of my blog should know by now how much I dislike the magazine Cook’s Illustrated. If you are new here, read one of my last rants on the subject, specifically, about how repugnant I find their tone when they write about Asian recipes, just before they “perfect” them by sucking every last bit of flavor, soul and everything that makes the recipe unique, Asian and interesting from it.

It isn’t just how the Cook’s Illustrated stable of writers and recipe “testers” destroy Asian recipes that annoys me–I cannot abide the way that their recipes are all trumpeted as “the best,” because, frankly, they are not exceptional in any way. They are just bland and often dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. And, I really hate the way in which they do taste tests and equipment ratings, where low price trumps quality every time. Essentially, what I think is that the staff of Cook’s Illustrated, Cook’s Country and America’s Test Kitchen has set themselves up as authorities on food and cooking without actually having much in the way of credentials to back up their claims.

And that is enough for me to have little patience with their overbearing, arrogant “we are always right” writing style, and to actively dislike their publications and television shows.

Unfortunately, that active dislike has, overnight, morphed into utter loathing, because of the actions of one of their public relations minions in the case of a blogger who used a recipe from Cook’s Country as inspiration for a potato salad and then blogged about it.

She was contacted by this misinformed public relations person by email, and was told in a very unprofessional manner that she was violating Cook’s Country’s copyright on that recipe and she was told that she must remove it from her blog.

That was not all–not only was she in violation of their copyright (which she was not–more on that in a moment), if she wanted to use a Cook’s Country recipe on her blog, she had to write to this PR person to ask permission, and then, once granted, she was not allowed to modify the recipe in any way.

Why?

Because the recipe has been rigorously tested and as it is published, it is perfected, and does not need to be modified.

That was what really torqued my gizzard right there. I mean, it was bad enough that the PR flunky had no idea what the laws on copyright covering recipes are in the first place (or if she did know, she was engaging in harassment by emailing this blogger out of the blue in order to misquote copyright law), but to have the gall to say that the publishers of Cook’s Country do not allow their recipes to be modified because they are already perfect is just beyond overbearing. That kind of arrogance and ignorance is something I do not expect to find among those of us who live in the reality based community.

The deal about copyright as it applies to recipes is this–and I know this because I have done some pretty extensive research on the subject so I could write about it at The Paper Palate and here on Tigers & Strawberries-according to US copyright law, you cannot ever copyright a list of ingredients. The only part of a recipe that is protected by copyright is the method, and then only if it is written in a unique and literary fashion. There are only so many ways to express the following sentence, “preheat oven to 350 degrees,” for example, so that phrase or sentence cannot be copyrighted.

If, however, you were to follow up that phrase with something along the lines of, “Then, dust off your grandmother’s cast iron frying pan–your grandmother did pass down a cast iron frying pan to you, didn’t she–well, if she didn’t any cast iron frying pan will do, and grease it up well with bacon drippings…” that series or phrases would fall under copyright.

In other words, if your recipe is written in a unique voice, with a recognizable style, it falls under copyright. If it is “just the facts ma’am,” then it doesn’t fall under copyright. All prose leading up to a recipe, describing the process of creating the recipe, does fall under copyright, as it is most certainly a literary expression.

Most food bloggers deal with the issue of using recipes from other sources by citing the source, and then changing either the ingredients, or the wording of the method enough to make it uniquely their own. However, even if they heavily modify the recipe, most food bloggers cite the source, because it is considered to be ethical to do so.

And most folks, both published cookbook authors and other bloggers, don’t seem to mind.

When I review cookbooks here, I always cook at least a handful of recipes from the book after I review the book and present them here, with pictures and commentaries. I have never had a cookbook author complain about this–quite the contrary, several authors have not only gone out of their way to thank me for presenting reviews for their books on my blog, but have often linked to this blog on their own sites, or have thanked me in print in subsequent editions of their cookbooks.

That is because these authors understand the power of word-of-mouth, or word-of-blog advertising. They understand that I am giving them free publicity by featuring their books and recipes in my blog and they understand what blogger and researcher Leena Trivedi-Grenier discovered in the course of her US Food Blog Survey–that people who read about a magazine or cookbook on a blog and see successful recipes presented from them tend to go out and BUY those publications. Duh.

Apparently, the publishers of Cook’s Illustrated, Cook’s Country and America’s Test Kitchen don’t grok that. They are so worried that they might lose money because someone presented one of their recipes for free, that they will risk the ire of a large number of potential readers by being utterly obnoxious to a blogger by telling her incorrectly that not only is she in violation of their copyright, but she isn’t allowed to change the recipe in the first place.

This is so hypocritical of these guys, since the woman who decided to adapt Sichuan Green Beans in their February 2007 tried to use dill pickles as a substitute for Sichuan preserved vegetables, because, I don’t know, a pickle is a pickle. Right? (Um, no. Dill pickles are made in brine from cucumbers, and Sichuan preserved vegetable is made from a type of mustard plant and is salted and rubbed with chilies and is allowed to ferment.) I mean–they change recipes all the time, including perfectly good traditional Asian ones, often in heinous ways, but they are so godlike and perfect that they can do that, while we mere mortals dare not? Puleez! They have a lot of nerve.

That is the last straw for me. I haven’t even looked at one of their publications in over a year, but now I never will again. Nor will I ever suggest any of their publications to any or my readers, friends or family. Nor will I ever purchase one of their books as a gift for new cooks, nor will I ever watch their television show.

I will say that I am tempted to take one of their lame-assed Asian recipes, and present it on my blog, deliberately changing what I need to in order to make it edible, then email their PR department, not to ask permission, but to inform them that I had done so on the chance that they would like to send me an obnoxious and ignorant email like the one sent to the blogger at Alosha’s Kitchen. If they did that, it would give me the excuse to open up a can of ugly legal whupass in a barrage of verbiage that is just this side of Lewis Black. (Here is a clue–stupid people merely annoy me, but condescending and supercilious stupid people will make me lose my cool. Most of the time, I can keep myself civil, but not always. In the case of these Culinary Inquisitors, there is no way I could maintain my usual poised and gracious online communication style.)

I probably won’t though, for several reasons. One, I would want to illustrate the post with my middle finger displayed prominently over the results of the recipe, and that is really, really juvenile. (I think I have been watching and reading a little too much Anthony Bourdain recently.) Two, I have other stuff to do, like present my own recipes, which are often original and which I don’t care if people change up when they cook them, because, dammit, that is what cooks do–they put their own individual fillip on their food, and I will be damned if I stop anyone from engaging in culinary creativity. And I have a restaurant to help run and a baby to raise and a girl getting ready for college, on top of it all.

And three, because, well, I just don’t like being that angry, and a post like that would necessitate a state of focused rage in order to present it with the proper satiric style. And while it would be fun to write the post as a complete send-up of the usual way they write their articles, with all of their bombast and bluster intact, I don’t think I have the energy to sit down and do that right now. I can either go to the gym and get back into physical shape or I can sharpen my wits on these addled morons, but I can’t do both. And right now, being more physically in shape is more important.

So there we have it–the final straw in the saga of the publishers of Cook’s Illustrated, Cook’s Country, and America’s Test Kitchen and my relationship with their magazines. It is over, done, finished.

Oh, well, except for this one thing–I am finally going to say something I have thought for years, but not said in a public forum–I cannot stand Christopher Kimball, his arrogant attitude which I believe has polluted every one of his publications, his faux-folksy, sexist-assed, uptight Yankee editorials, and his god-damned dweeb haircut and bow tie. He’s a self-important git who sucks the joy and life out of cooking every time he picks up his pen.

There.

I said it.

And the devil in me feels just a little bit better for it.

And yeah, I -have- been watching a little too much Lewis Black and Anthony Bourdain these days.

Maybe I should take up Zen meditation again.

It might help.

How To Eat Locally Without Doing the Work Involved

So, the New York Times had this article a few days ago, which I found out about thanks to Tessa, my Mom-in-Law, about the different little service-industry businesses which are growing up to cater to folks who want to eat local foods without having to grow them, go to the market for them or in some cases, even bother with cooking them.

The article, entitled, “A Locally Grown Diet With Fuss But No Muss,” outlines the various different ways that affluent people can jump on the locavore bandwagon without getting their hands dirty. Various enterprising gardeners, cooks, chefs, farmers and caterers have started offering services to the public that allow people to eat farm fresh foods without bothering with the farm, or the farmer’s market and in some cases, without even entering the kitchen.

Michael Ruhlman, author of The Making of a Chef (and many other good books besides) posted about the front page article and asked of his readers, what they thought the impact on our society would be as the locavore movement becomes more mainstream (as it has done increasingly over the past three or four years). He wanted to hear what other folks thought about the trend–was it driven by forces that would give it longevity in our fast-moving, attention deficit disorder cultural climate, or was it all just a fashionable whimsy which will have its fifteen minutes of fame only to suffer a swift and painful demise, exiting our consciousness with not a bang, but a whimper?

Ruhlman asks a fair question, and rather than clog up his comments section with an essay, I figured I’d ruminate on the subject here.

I think that generally speaking, the mainstreaming of the practice of eating locally grown food is a good thing. It certainly has done a lot to boost local economies, especially in rural areas like Athens, Ohio, where we lack lots of sources of employment and income for our residents. The idea of local eating has done a lot to highlight the good that is done in our communities by small farmers, and has helped people to understand that when they spend money in their communities by turning their backs on large corporations and supporting smaller businesses, that money tends to stay in the community.

In other words, when you shop at Wal-Mart, other than supporting the local employees salaries, you are not doing a lot to support your own local economy–the lion’s share of your shopping dollar goes back to Wal-Mart headquarters and helps to pay CEO salaries and the like. And you can just bet that those CEO’s in Wal-Mart land are not exactly traveling back to your little community and spending that money you gave them on any businesses in your neighborhood. Whereas, if you give money to a local small business operator, like, say, a farmer, that money tends to in turn, be spent within your own community.

I not only care about the national economy, I care about it on the local level, and whatever I can do to help make that smaller economy more robust and healthy, I will make it a point to run right out and do it.

I also believe that locally grown food tastes better and because it wasn’t picked and kept in a refrigerated truck, warehouse, distribution center, or grocery store produce department for weeks, it is more nutritious that the stuff at the supermarket.

While some may fault me and call me an elitist for saying that I give enough of a damned about taste to pay more money for it, I think that they wrong.

How the hell can I be an elitist when I eat the way I grew up eating as a lower-middle-class farm girl? My grandparents and parents were not rich, but we ate the tastiest food of anyone I knew, in large part, because it was fresher that what came from the store.

Yes, it costs more now–but as demand rises, and more farmers and producers step into the market to supply that demand, the prices will FALL, and thus that so-called elitist food will fall in price, and thus become affordable to more people. (Hey, I do remember a few things from those economics classes from umpteen years ago in college! Who’d have thought I would?) One could say that by buying local food now because I have the money to spend on it, I am helping to ensure that the price will fall so that others may partake of it later. (It isn’t like I am buying boutique food–I am just buying farm-fresh products.)

In addition, there are programs in place on both a state and national level that help offset the cost of local produce for low income families and those on fixed incomes like the elderly or those with disabilities. I suspect that as local food moves farther into the mainstream, these programs will grow in number, and that is also a very good thing. I think that everyone deserves to eat fresh, nutritious food that supports their local economy and ecosystem.

Do I even need to mention food safety issues, in light of recent salmonella outbreaks from tomatoes and jalapeños where no source of contamination has ever been successfully tracked down, though hundreds of people have fallen ill? In a local food system, these outbreaks would not only be easier to trace after the fact, they would be easier to contain, and the damage to public health would be lessened.

I also think that as conventional food prices rise, we are going to see a lot more people attempting to grow at least some of their own food, in an effort to reduce food bills and to boost their family’s nutrition.

Once again, I think that this is a good thing. I’d love to see every lawn in America either dug up and replaced with a combination kitchen/ornamental garden, or used to graze small livestock.

It isn’t just because I hate lawns and think that they use up way more resources than they are worth in the form of gasoline, pesticides, petroleum-based fertilizers, time and personal energy, nor is it just that I find large expanses of perfectly manicured green grass to be monotonous and boring to the eye. It isn’t even that as a chef and the granddaughter of farmers that I hate to see perfectly good arable land wasted.

It is because having a multitude of different kinds of plants in an area is not only better for your table, better for the aesthetics of a landscape, and better for the soil, it is better for all the other creatures who share the earth with us. Birds, butterflies, bees, chipmunks and squirrels have to eat, too, you know. And, yes, so do slugs, snails and Japanese beetles, but I reserve the right to remove them from my garden when they eat enough to damage my own food supply.

I think that gardens don’t just grow plants and food, they grow communities. And I think that Americans could use a good shot of community in our culture right about now. Here in Athens, where the community garden allotments have grown exponentially this year as folks return to growing some of their own food, you see neighbors chatting and sharing knowledge over their hoes and shovels in ways that remind me of my childhood. Part of it is indeed because Athens is a pretty special small town and the folks here are awfully nice, but I think that helping each other grow food creates a bond that is healthy for our psyches.

There are lots of reasons that I think that local eating is both good for us and is here to stay, but I won’t go on about all of them now, because I want to talk more about the New York Times article, because some commenters on Ruhlman’s blog went on about how silly it was to pay people to, for example, dig up your yard, and build and tend a kitchen garden in its place for you, from seedlings to harvest.

I don’t think that it is silly at all.

There are several legitimate reasons why someone might pay a gardener to dig up their yard and replace it with a kitchen garden.

1. Lots of people love gardens, but have no bloody idea of how to garden, and they don’t have the time to learn. So, if they have the money, why should they not pay someone who is an expert to build and tend their garden for them. Not only does this employ a local gardener and boost the local economy, it also gets rid of more lawn and gets fresh food to one more family. (Besides, I suspect that folks who do hire gardeners this way end up learning enough about gardening that if they have time, they can do some tending and harvesting themselves. Maybe even some propagation and planting.)

2. Some folks love to garden, but have physical disabilities that impair their ability to dig up tons of soil and move it around, so they hire a gardener to do the heavy work that they cannot do. Some elderly folks just cannot get down on their knees like they used to, and some people have found that it is really hard to run a rototiller or wield a spade from a wheelchair, so why should they not hire someone to do the parts of gardening that they cannot, while also reaping the benefits of having a garden–fresh air, sunshine, and delicious, home grown produce?

3. Some people have more money than they have time because they work jobs which preclude them from doing the work that is necessary to tend a garden, yet they still want one anyway. Why should they not hire someone to do the work which they do not have time to do? (Or is it wrong for busy people with money but no time to hire folks to clean their houses, too? I bet some professional house cleaners might disagree with that–just as professional gardeners might disagree that hiring themselves out to garden for others is frivolous or silly. Once again, we are supporting the local economy.)

As for the personal chefs, the caterers and the takeout businesses who use local ingredients for their clients–why is that any sillier or more frivolous than having a personal chef, caterer or patronizing a takeout business in the first place?

And why is it wrongheaded for a city-dweller to buy a share of a cow on a farm outside of city limits? Or a pig, or whatever? How is it any different than the practice that some suburban, urban and city dwellers have done for years, of buying all or part of a steer from a local farmer, and having the wrapped and frozen meat delivered after the animal is taken to the slaughterhouse? (Clue–it isn’t any different, or wrongheaded–it just has a clever name–”cows pooling” these days.)

The thing is–none of this locavore business is new. It is, quite simply, how most Americans ate before WWII. Sure, staple items, like flour, coffee, sugar, pasta and rice, came from elsewhere, as did luxuries like bananas (and citrus fruit for those not in their growing regions), but by and large, much of the food people ate, the meat, dairy, eggs, fruits and vegetables, came from farms nearby. People tended to grow some of their own food, particularly during WWI, the Great Depression and WWII, because it helped cut costs to do so.

Now I am not saying we need to go completely back to the old ways of doing things. Agriculture on a large scale does some things right–the growing of grains, for example. But, what I am saying is that because eating locally isn’t really that new of an idea, people will catch on to it more readily. My own parents, for example, remember what pre-Confined Animal Feeding Operation chicken and pork tasted like, and when they taste local chicken and pork, they are returned to the way food used to be, and they want that flavor again, and again.

I think that a lot of people are like that–they want to taste what food used to be like, even if they are not old enough to remember it in the first place, and that is why I think that the locavore movement is here to stay.

(Thank you, Michael, for asking such a good question–otherwise, I might have just posted a link to the New York Times piece with minimal commentary. This was much more fun to write, and hopefully to read, too.)

News, News, News

I’ve been busy, busy, busy.

And last week, our internet connection was down, down, down.

So, I could not post, post, post.

But then the internet came back on, and we had the busiest weekend at Salaam of the past several months, so I was tired, tired, tired. (Tired, but smiling–I live for crazy-busy nights. It’s the best feeling–riding the wave, getting the food out, moving, my brain and hands moving at a blur. It’s a great adrenaline rush.)

But I have news, news news.

Yes.

It is official–Hilarie and Mark, the owners of Restaurant Salaam, signed a lease on a new building, and work has begun on renovating the space to turn it into our new home. Yes, Salaam is moving, into a building which has never housed a restaurant, so we are constructing the kitchen from the ground up, to our specifications.

So, I can use what I know about how food, bus tubs, servers, cooks and everyone else should flow in and out of a kitchen to full advantage by helping Hil design the whole area. It will be quite a showpiece, very exciting, and our cooking capabilities will increase exponentially. I am not joking.

And all I wanted was a proper stove–you guys don’t understand–Hilarie and I and the rest of the cooks have been putting out tons of food from a kitchen that has no stove.

We cook on a two burner hot plate.

Now, we will have all sorts of equipment to cook on, not just a stove, but a grill, ovens, a wok burner–maybe even a chef’s table.

Pretty soon we will begin on menu development, and I’ll need to start thinking of recipes for specials, and training our cooks to use the new equipment.

This is so exciting!

I promise to post pictures, updates and news as the project progresses, and when we have our grand re-opening, I promise to put digital cameras into several folks’ hands so I can share the flavor of the event with everyone right here.

So that is why I haven’t posted as much–there has been a lot going on.

(In addition, Kat is walking all the time, and I finished another quilt–I’ll post pictures later, and am now quilting another one–pictures of that one this weekend!)

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.