Recipe – Cold Dish – the Shanghai Salad – Cooked to be fresh!

     Generally, we Chinese are not used to having salad during our meals. But this doesn’t make us don’t know what is cold dish and salad. This dish is gonna impress you. I’m Cantonese but I also suggest this – the Shanghai Salad. Definitely worth a try! Maybe you’ve already got some ideas about this dish from the picture. Are they all raw? Nope!

Salad tastes FRESH, not RAW.

If you’ve read most of my recipes, you may see that I always emphasize on the flexible matching of different ingredients in a dish. This time, you have to make your choice that whether to put chicken, shrimp or even noodles as the main ingredient into this cold dish.

I prefer the chicken one for I’m still a rookie in using knifes in US, which is completely different from what I use in China. To chop those raw shrimps can be too difficult and sometimes they look bad after a long time preparation.

Shanghai Shrimp Salad

Shanghai Noodle Salad

Ingredients:

• 1/2 chicken or chicken thigh, cut to small pieces, don’t dice. COOKED
• 2 ¼ lbs. ramen noodles, crumbled
• 12 oz. slivered almonds, toasted
• 3 lbs. Chinese or Napa cabbage, shredded
• 12 oz. red or green bell peppers, chopped
• 5 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken breast, COOKED, cubed
• 4 ½ qts. black beans, drained (1 ½ 10# cans)
• Vegetable cooking spray
  
  
  

Seasonings:

• 1 tsp light soy sauce
• 2 2/3 cups rice wine vinegar
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup reduced-sodium soy sauce
• 1 cup sesame oil, or more to taste
• 1 cup honey

Method:

1. For the Dressing: Combine all dressing ingredients in a medium bowl, whisking until sugar is dissolved. Reserve.

2. For the Salad: Place ramen noodles on large baking sheets; spray with vegetable cooking spray. Bake at 350°F, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Cool.

3. To Assemble: At serving time, combine toasted ramen noodles, almonds, vegetables, chicken and beans. Toss with dressing and serve.

Time:

Prep: 20 mins

Cook: 8mins

Yield: serves 2 to 3

Knifes for cold dish:

    All of us know we should use different knifes to cut raw food and cooked food. Usually, cooked food needs a knife with less stain and no rust to cut because we eat the food right after the cutting.

Perhaps I should suggest you a relatively new kind of knifes, the ceramic knifes. Well, I don’t know whether you guys in US will buy and use this for this kind of knife is brought by a Japanese ceramic manufacturer first. Now, in China, many knife makers do so with lower cost. So, the price is nothing to worry about. The Santoku one is the kitchen knife for general use. If you want to use it daily, buy this kind.

    Recently I found a ceramic knife kit of 2 ceramic knifes on Amazon, sold at $75. As I told you, the Japanese maker sells with high price so what I bought last time was a cheaper one made in China, click to see, $17.

Good knifes do cut.

Enjoy your homemade flavor!

Remember:

1.      Cooking time would be slightly varied between different cooking wares.

2.      Chinese dish can have a flexible ingredient proportion. Keep trying and you will cook your new flavor. You may use other seasoning as well.

If you tried, don’t hesitate to share. Picture? Words? Essays? WELCOME!

Have difficulties? Let me help you.