Recipe #31 - Asian Cabbage Salad

When most people feed company, they use their "tried and true" recipes that never fail them.  It makes perfect sense, right?  But then there is me.  I get all excited that I can try some new recipes on people who might just appreciate them.  I pretty regularly tell people, "This is the first time I've made this, so if you don't like it I won't be offended."  Chances are, I'm trying it for the first time at the same time they are.

This doesn't always work out well, but most times it is a success.  Luckily, this recipe was a success.  My side of the family all went up to my parents' cabin for Labor Day weekend, and I was in charge of dinner on Friday night.  So I consulted my handy, dandy cookbook.

The first recipe I made was Asian Cabbage Salad. It is found in the cookbook on page 75 or online here.

First you make the dressing.  All the ingredients get put into a sealed jar.

Then you shake it up.

The dressing does call for quite a few ingredients.  I happened to have them all, but some aren't standard pantry items if you don't cook Asian food very often.

Once the dressing is done, it goes into the fridge.  The dressing can actually be made 2-3 days in advance if needed.

Then you start working on the salad portion.  The base is a bag of coleslaw mix.

Then you cut up the other goodies: celery, cucumber, red pepper, red onions, and snap peas.

If you would like the salad to have a little more "umph" or be more of a main dish, the recipe suggests using grilled chicken or shrimp in it too.  I just so happened to have one cooked chicken breast that needed to be used up before we took off for the weekend, so I cut it up and put it in.

Then you toss the salad, minus the dressing.

When you get a little closer to serving time, you toss the dressing with the salad.  The recipe says 30-60 minutes before serving.  Because of this, I assumed that any leftovers would be soggy (which is typical when you put dressing on a salad and store in the fridge), but I was quite surprised to find that the next day, the leftovers were still yummy and not soggy at all.

Just before serving it, you add the toasted almonds and the toasted sesame seeds.

(I totally forgot to take a picture of this salad before I served it.  Luckily I had enough leftovers for a bowl of it, just right for picture taking.)

For the record, this is not typically a recipe that I would make.  It looked good, but not like something anyone in my family but me would enjoy.  I was wrong.  We all loved it.  It was the most commented on item I made that day.  I was very surprised and will be adding this to my list of "make again" recipes.