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Carrot-ginger dressing


Fat Guy

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I'd be interested in hearing from anybody who has mastered this dressing.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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I have tried various versions of this dressing, most gotten off the internet and they aren't even close!! If someone out there has a good recipe I would love to try it. One interesting thing though is that while this is the most popular thing in Japanes restaurants in the US I have never seen anything close to it in Japan! Until just recently the only dressing you could get in restaurants was 1000 islands!! :wink:

Kristin Wagner, aka "torakris"

 

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I assume this is the ubiquitous dressing served to you in salads in Japanese restaurants?

Yes, though I'd like to make something that tastes better. I'm actually thinking more along the lines of the more carroty dressings I've had at pseudo-healthy restaurants like Yaffa in the East Village (NYC).

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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I mean I don't even know where to start. Like, which appliance is best for this? What goes in besides carrots and oil? I'm looking for a tutorial.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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dunno about the ones at Yaffa. (or perhaps Dojo?)

for the Japanese ones, I assume

grated or shredded carrots

grated or finely minced/pounded ginger

yuzu or perhaps lemon juice

mirin or rice vinegar

sesame oil? sugar?

I'm trying to deconstruct the ingredients here. I'm sure I'm missing a couple of elements.

SA

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Soba's ingredients sound pretty good to me. No sugar if using mirin. Plus a little soy sauce for the salt? Everybody into the blender except oil. Purée. Drizzle in oil slowly until emulsified. Stop machine to taste. Restart machine to correct flavor by adding what's missing.

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they must sell this stuff in commercial or restaurant-worthy form. every single Japanese restaurant has this dressing in one form or another.

Maybe you can look into it, FG?

If not a blender, how about your trusty La Cuisinart? It slices, it dices, it even does the kitchen sink.

heh

SA

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I mean I don't even know where to start. Like, which appliance is best for this? What goes in besides carrots and oil? I'm looking for a tutorial.

Steven, try this:

Slowly simmer in covered vessel 250 gr washed, but not peeled "short stubby" European Carrots in some evaporated Milk until well soft. Purre in blender with Ginger in syrup of one tenth amount of Carrots. Drizzle into that Walnut Oil and a few drops of Lemon juice. When it gets emulsified, and possibly too thick, add a splash of Ginger Ale to thin out. Add Japonaise Kikkoman Soya Sauce to taste. (careful with that).

A few toasted Sesame seeds, a jigger of Coconut Milk and ground Poppyseed gives some additional character. Try it on Mache (Feldsalat / Lambstongue)

Happy Holidays.

Peter
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Wow, that one sounds good. But what are these "gr" things? Just kidding.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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Just found the recipe from Mi (the directions are mine):

200 gr carrots, peeled and cut in large dice

75 gr ginger, peeled and cut in 1/4-inch coins

45 gr shallots, peeled and cut in large dice

125 gr rice vinegar

50 gr mirin

50 gr honey

50 gr soy sauce

1 tsp. cayenne

1 T. kosher salt

200 gr canola oil

50 gr sesame oil

Process carrots, ginger, and shallots in food processor until finely chopped. With machine going, add slowly: rice vinegar, mirin, honey, soy sauce, cayenne, and salt. Process until very finely chopped. (It should still have some texture.) With machine going, very slowly drizzle in canola oil to form an emulsion.

Remove dressing to a storage container, and stir in sesame oil.

This dressing will separate as it stands. Stir vigorously before using.

Makes about 1 1/2 Quarts.

Note: I have not tried using a blender; that will give you a smoother texture. To do so cut carrots, ginger, and shallots into smaller pieces, and add the vinegar and soy sauce at the beginning. Then proceed with the other ingredients in the same way.

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  • 7 years later...

Back in 2002, when I introduced this topic, I tried some of the above approaches and produced a tasty dressing -- but it didn't really capture the taste of American Japanese-restaurant carrot-ginger dressing. I had the dressing in a mediocre Japanese restaurant the other night and I'm still convinced that it can't be all that hard to make at home -- but I have no idea what I'm missing. Anybody with more data here?

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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I've been making a carrot ginger dressing that is very popular. The recipe is exactly the same as Suzanne F's, except it uses mayonnaise in place of the canola oil. I blend it in a Vitamix to get it smooth. It holds it's emulsion very well.

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I'm going to try Suzanne's recipe, also, just as soon as I can get some fresh ginger. But I'm also going to try an additional version, exactly the same but with the addition of a tablespoon of light miso. The reason is because a waiter once recited the recipe to our table at a sushi joint once, and miso was definitely in his rapid-fire rendition. I've been making a non-carrot version for years, with miso, and it's been pretty good. But I think Suzanne F's has more going for it.

Ray

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There's a good carrot dressing recipe in one of Mario Batali's books. As I recall, a large amount of carrot juice was reduced way down, cooled and recombined with some fresh carrot juice. Then it's simply a matter of adding the oil and acid you want. It won't be unbreakably emulsified, but that's true of most dressings. You could always put in a little xanthan gum if you wanted to thicken it and stabilize the emulsification.

--

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It has to be a really common/standardized recipe because with a couple of exceptions, MOST Japanese restaurants that I've been to over the past 10-15 years -- ranging from healthy places like Dojo to hole-in-the-wall all-you-can-eat sushi joints to second tier places like Sushi Seki offer this dressing to a "T".

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I'm going to try Suzanne's recipe, also, just as soon as I can get some fresh ginger. But I'm also going to try an additional version, exactly the same but with the addition of a tablespoon of light miso. The reason is because a waiter once recited the recipe to our table at a sushi joint once, and miso was definitely in his rapid-fire rendition. I've been making a non-carrot version for years, with miso, and it's been pretty good. But I think Suzanne F's has more going for it.

Ray

Here's one that actually calls for miso.

Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

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It has to be a really common/standardized recipe because with a couple of exceptions, MOST Japanese restaurants that I've been to over the past 10-15 years -- ranging from healthy places like Dojo to hole-in-the-wall all-you-can-eat sushi joints to second tier places like Sushi Seki offer this dressing to a "T".

I've had the same experience-- this dressing is almost always the same, even in bad restaurants. It's like some secret that's known to all Japanese restaurants, but we can't figure out.

Chris Sadler

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I'm going to try Suzanne's recipe, also, just as soon as I can get some fresh ginger. But I'm also going to try an additional version, exactly the same but with the addition of a tablespoon of light miso. The reason is because a waiter once recited the recipe to our table at a sushi joint once, and miso was definitely in his rapid-fire rendition. I've been making a non-carrot version for years, with miso, and it's been pretty good. But I think Suzanne F's has more going for it.

Ray

Here's one that actually calls for miso.

Anna, you're a gem! I was never able to stumble across that one. But Suzanne's has a few more tasty ingredients. So, a combo?

Ray

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Here is one to try, obviously with some grated carrot added in: http://www.topsecretrecipes.com/recipedetail.asp?sessionid=&login=yes&id=335&agree=yes

Also, the Benihana recipe from their website posted above is no longer available, but you can snag it through the internet archive site: http://web.archive.org/web/20070202103815/http://benihana.com/recipe.asp?what=benihana-salad-dressing

Edited by infernooo (log)
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Here's my take on it, also on my blog:

This was inspired by the salad dressing they use at a local Japanese restaurant. Some places have a dressing that resembles thousand island, but this dressing is nothing like it. It’s chunky and spicy from ginger and garlic, and it’s very healthy having almost no fat and being very low in carbs.

Ingredients:

1 cup of cut peeled carrots (approx. 6 ozs)

2″ piece of fresh ginger (approx. 2 ozs)

1 clove of fresh garlic, peeled

3 tbs light soy sauce

1 tbs Mirin (cooking sake)

1 tbs rice wine vinegar

1/4 tsp sesame oil

Place the carrots, ginger and garlic in the bowl of your food processor with the standard chopping blade and puree until it’s about the consistency of sawdust. I use a mini food processor because the volume is pretty small – even so I have to stop several times and push the mixture back into the blade area. If you use a standard size food processor then you’ll have to do this even more. (No food processor? You can grate the carrots and ginger with a microplane grater and mince the garlic.)

Transfer to a small mixing bowl and stir in the remaining ingredients. While you’re doing this, check for chunks of ginger that the food processor missed and remove them.

If you don’t have Mirin (a sweet Japanese cooking sake) you can substitute cream sherry or just add some sugar or splenda to taste.

Mark

My eG Food Blog

www.markiscooking.com

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