Recipe

April 20, 2011

Ask a Chef: Tangled Thai Salad Recipe

Recipe: Jennifer Houston

A healthy faux-noodle vegetable salad.

Q: I’ve never been a huge fan of salad, but the Tangled Thai Salad at Fresh in Toronto has me obsessed. Can you get me the recipe? – Jane, Richmond Hill

A: Jennifer Houston — head chef and co-owner of Fresh in Toronto — uses a turning slicer (or “spiralizer”) to make this salad’s signature super long, noodle-like strands of carrot and yellow beet.

Ingredients

Salad

  • 1 cup chopped napa cabbage
  • 1/3 cup jicama, cut into small sticks
  • 2/3 cup peeled raw carrot, spiralized
  • 2/3 cup peeled raw yellow beets, spiralized
  • 4 tbsp Peanut Lime Dressing (recipe follows)
  • 3 slices cucumber, halved
  • 2 tsp chopped raw peanuts
  • 2 tbsp Fresh Salad Topper (recipe follows)
  • 1/4 lime
  • Cilantro to taste

Peanut Lime Dressing

  • 1 tbsp ginger, peeled and chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
  • 3/4 tsp sambal oelek (a South Asian chili sauce)
  • 2 tbsp cilantro, densely packed
  • 2 tbsp natural peanut butter
  • 2 tbsp plus 2 tsp lime juice
  • 1 tbsp rice vinegar
  • 1 tbsp plus 1/2 tsp tamari (a type of soy sauce)
  • 1-1/2 tsp organic sugar
  • 2 tsp coconut milk
  • 3/4 tsp sesame oil
  • 1/2 cup sunflower oil

Fresh Salad Topper

  • 1 cup puffed quinoa
  • 1/4 cup goji berries
  • 1/4 cup currants
  • 2 tbsp sliced almonds
  • 2 tbsp hazelnuts, chopped
  • 2 tbsp pistachios, chopped
  • 1/4 tsp sea salt

Directions

Yield: Serves 1

Salad

  1. Put cabbage into a large bowl and top with jicama. Pile the carrot and beet strands on top and drizzle with Peanut Lime Dressing.
  2. Garnish with cucumber, peanuts, Fresh Salad Topper, lime and cilantro

Peanut Lime Dressing

  1. In a blender, puree all but sunflower oil. With blender running, add oil in a thin stream.

Makes 1 cup, enough for 4 salads

Fresh Salad Topper

  1. Put all ingredients into a bowl and mix.

Makes approx. 1-3/4 cups; refrigerate unused portions