A Superfood Lunch: Sesame-dressed Greens with Seed Crunch
The new wave of chefs and food writers (Ottolenghi, Anna Jones, Tim Anderson) all play with global ingredients to come up with flavour bombs to blow up the taste buds. There a many different versions of this sweet-salt Japanese-ish sesame dressing that is killer on almost anything.
For the greens:
To feed 4
600g of whatever you have: eg broccoli (I used new season purple sprouting), green beans etc.
Blanch in boiling water for 2 -3 minutes, then if not eating warm, plunge into iced water to cool quickly, and set aside.
For the sesame dressing:
To eat with everything.
5 tbs toasted sesame seeds
5 tablespoons tahini
4 tablespoons mirin
4 tablespoons rice vinegar or 2 tbs lemon juice
3 tablespoons vegetable or light olive oil
2.5 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbs maple syrup or sugar
Pound the sesame seeds with mortar and pestle till you have a coarse powder. Beat in the other ingredients. Store to use as a sauce or glaze, or add a little water to use as a dressing or dip.
For a less complex but almost instant version, blitz together the 2 tbsp tahini with 1 tbs each soy sauce, lemon juice, maple syrup, olive oil.
For the soy-toasted seeds:
A brilliant snack anytime.
100g mixed seeds (I use an equal amount of pumpkin, sunflower and hemp but nuts are good too)
5 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tbs maple syrup (optional)
Warm a dry frying pan over a medium high heat and add your seeds. Toast, shaking from time to time. After 2-3 minutes they will being to pop. If you are using maple syrup, beat into the soy sauce and have at the ready. Turn the heat down and continue to cook, shaking and tossing more frequently for another couple of minutes. When evenly and lightly golden, remove from the heat and pour over the soy mixture, tossing and scraping like mad – the soy sauce will bubble and evaporate and stick to the pan so you want to keep turning and scraping up before it does that. Pour into a shallow bowl or plate and allow to cool before transferring to an airtight container to store.