Zucchini and Carrot Salad with Umeboshi Dressing
Zucchini and Carrot Salad with Umeboshi Dressing
I like to try new things, so when i saw umeboshi plums in the Japanese section of a local health food store, i didn’t know what i would do with them, but i bought them and took them home. This was before i knew about Google. I tried them plain and thought they were interesting but i couldn’t really imagine what i could use them in. The more i ate them over time, the more i liked them. They were a lot of trouble to seed – the seed is nearly the whole little plum. Eventually i found a recipe with them in a salad dressing in the great vegan cookbook May All Be Fed. I wrote on the recipe “8/22/05 weird”. I laboriously seeded a lot of plums to get the paste. I then found the umeboshi paste in a different store and got it and ate the rest of the umeboshi with seeds one at a time when i came across them in the refrigerator. I liked the plums and i guess i kept that dressing in mind over the next five years and eventually i came up with one i like, that goes well with Japanese food. I like it better with more rice syrup that you should have every day, but you might want to try it first with the larger amount.
You also might like to try about 1/8 t. wasabi powder mixed very well into the dressing instead of or in addition to the mustard. I am still deciding if i want to use more wasabi or if i even want it in my salad dressing. But the flavors of the plum, rice syrup, and the wasabi bounce off each other in a very interesting way.
Rice syrup really goes best with the other flavors, but you can try agave if you don’t want to buy a whole bottle of the rice syrup just for this. Many people use it in place of sugar. I can eat a half a cup straight, but let’s not go there… it certainly would make a nice sweetener in tea.
Umeboshi Dressing
Makes 4 servings
Can be made ahead
Keeps in refrigerator at least a couple of weeks.
1 c. rice vinegar
½ c. water
4 t. Dijon mustard or 1/8 or more t. wasabi
3 T. umeboshi paste
4 t. to 4 T. rice syrup
Mix well. Mix again just before serving.
This recipe was adapted wildly from Rose’s Sweet and Sour Dressing in May All Be Fed by John Robbins and Jia Patton.
Nutritional information – not guaranteed to be accurate:
Per Serving – 39 calories
Zucchini and Carrot Salad
When i first read of using grated raw zucchini in a salad from Mary McDougall, I was dubious. All right, i was downright skeptical. But when i was learning to like a salad every day, or even twice a day, i tried grated zucchini and found it surprisingly not bad. When i tried it with umeboshi dressing i knew i had found a good thing that would become a regular salad for me.
You can make the salad with just grated zucchini and carrot, or you can put in more veggies to vary the flavor. Carrot, zucchini, daikon radish, and cucumber are found in many Japanese dishes.
Zucchini and Carrot Salad
Makes 4 servings
Preparation about 15 minutes, or you can use a shredding blade on your food processor in about 5 minutes
Can be made ahead but no more than a day
4 medium zucchini
4 medium carrots
2 inches daikon radish
1 – 2 medium cucumbers
You don’t have to peel anything, but i usually peel the daikon as it is usually too dirty for my taste, although i’m sure if you scrub it, it’s clean. Cucumbers that are not organic are often waxed, so you probably don’t want to eat their peel, although i am told the wax will not hurt you. But the green makes a nice addition to the salad, although you have the green peel of the zucchini too.
Grate the vegetables and mix.
If you add the dressing a while before serving, it blends nicely with the vegetables, but it is not necessary.
Original idea of using grated zucchini in a salad from one of Mary McDougall’s thousands of recipes. The rest was my idea.
Nutritional information – not guaranteed to be accurate:
Per Serving – 46 calories/2.3 g protein (2.8%)/.3 g fat (5.8%)
