Burmese Ginger Salad
There’s tea leaf salad, rice salad, ginger salad, and so on and so forth. Many of them are mixed by hand and include fish sauce, oil, and a variety of aromatics. Some of them are delicious, and some of them are weeeird, but I suppose thats a matter of taste. One more delicious salad which i like to introduce to you is call Ginger Salad locally called ” GIN TOKE “. Pickled ginger, crunchy cabbage, fried lentils and lima beans, peanuts, lemons, the list goes on! So many delicious things all combined into one refreshing and wonderful salad. Its a safe bet for picky eaters because its flavorful, but not offensively so, and doesn’t contain too many crazy foreign ingredients. It is easy to make, arguably pretty healthy, and incredibly refreshing. Yaaaay! Let’s make some.
Ingredients
This refreshing salad is made up of pickled ginger, fried shallots and cabbage. Pickled ginger is the star of this salad, and although you can purchase a jar of pickled ginger I would urge you to pickle your own. In fact, depending on where you live, it may be easier for you to purchase fresh ginger than to find a jar of pickled ginger in your store. I find the flavor of home pickled ginger far superior to purchased, without additives and coloring. And it’s quite easy to make. Give yourself time to make it ahead and let it cure for a few days
Ingredients
- ½ cup pumpkin seeds, toasted
- 1 cup peanuts, roasted, coarsely chopped
- ¼ cup white sesame seeds, toasted
- 1 cup pickled ginger, see recipe here, or purchased
- 1 small tomato, diced, about ½ cup
- 4 cups sliced Napa cabbage
- ½ cup fried shallots, see recipe here, or purchased
Dressing ingredients
- ¼ cup fresh lime juice, (from 1 to 2 limes)
- 2 tbsp. fish sauce, or 4 tbsp. pounded dried shrimp
- 1 tbsp. pickled ginger brine
- 5 tbsp. shallot oil, from the fried shallots
- ½ tsp. kosher salt, or ¼ tsp. table salt
- 1 tsp. sugar
Directions
Begin by toasting your nuts and seeds, if they aren’t already toasted. Pumpkin seeds, or pepitas, usually come raw or roasted. To roast them, simply place in a dry skillet over medium heat, and toast, stirring, until they start to change color and “snap, crackle, and pop!” Remove from heat and cool. Same goes for sesame seeds and peanuts, they’ll take just a minute to toast in a dry pan. Just make sure you toast them all separately.
Remove the ginger from the brine and slice into julienne strips. You can stack the slices and cut through several layers at a time to make this job go quickly.
Add the toasted nuts and seeds, ginger, tomato, cabbage, and ½ cup of the fried shallots to a large salad bowl, toss. Mix the dressing ingredients together and toss with the salad. Add salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with the remaining fried shallots.
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