We’ve gotten a number of cabbages from our CSA this year, and, for the most part, we turned them into our Light Coleslaw. It’s easy, cool for summer, and it uses a lot of cabbage, making it great to put together for a lunch or dinner side dish. But, after making Light Coleslaw three or four times, it’s time for a change. So, we came up with this Asian-insipred version of coleslaw. Try it and let us know what you think.
Now, we don’t claim that this is an authentic Asian dish, or even a recreation of something that we’ve had in the past. Instead, we let our imaginations roam over what we could do with the ingredients we had in the house and came up with this. So, it’s a 100% Scratchin’ It original recipe just for you, our faithful reader.
Asian Peanut Slaw
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup vinegar (60 g)
- 1/2 cup sugar (50 g)
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1/2 inch piece ginger, diced
- Pinch red pepper flake
- 1/4 head cabbage, core removed. and finely shredded
- 1-2 carrots, peeled and grated
- 2 Tbs sesame seeds
- 1/2 cup peanuts
- 1 Tbs sesame oil
- 1 tsp tamari sauce
Instructions
- Combine sugar, vinegar, salt, ginger, and red pepper flake in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring to dissolve sugar and salt. Remove from heat and let steep for 5 minutes.
- In a medium bowl, combine cabbage, carrots, sesame seeds, and peanuts. Strain vinegar mixture over the top and stir.
- Add sesame oil and tamari sauce, stir to coat. Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.
Ingredient discussion:
We’d have used rice wine vinegar for this, but, we didn’t have any, so we used plain white vinegar instead. If we’d thought of it in time, we might have used apple cider vinegar, but, alas, we can’t think of everything. While we have both black and white sesame seeds, we chose the white sesame seeds to stand out against the purple cabbage. If we used green cabbage, it would be black sesame seeds. Peanuts, we used dry roasted. For sesame oil, well, it took us a long time to decide on a brand; we know nothing about sesame oil, but, after some checking on the Internet, we bought Kadoya-brand toasted sesame oil. We keep it in the refrigerator so it doesn’t go rancid, and, so far, we’ve been happy with it. If you know better-tasting brands, let us know. Finally, tamari sauce is soy sauce made by fermenting soy beans. It’s not like the caramel-colored salt water sold as soy sauce; instead, it’s far more flavorful, and we use it in place of soy sauce everywhere. Our go-to brand is San-J.
Procedure in detail:
Make sauce. We’ve found this to be the key to making great coleslaw: make a sauce. It’s easy, and you can generally get it started, then shred the cabbage and grate the carrots while it steeps. So, in a small saucepan, combine the vinegar, sugar, salt, ginger, and red pepper flake. Place it over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Once boiling, remove from heat and let steep for about 5 minutes.
Make salad. Meanwhile, combine the shredded cabbage, grated carrots, sesame seeds, and peanuts in a medium bowl. Now, wait until your sauce has steeped, then strain the vinegar mixture over the cabbage, discarding the red pepper flake and ginger. Stir to combine.
Add seasoning. Add the sesame oil and soy sauce, then stir to coat. Cover with plastic and refrigerate for at least an hour before serving to let the flavors meld.
We thought this turned out pretty well. Definitely good enough that we’ll add it to our repertoire of cabbage salad recipes and make it again. You can’t beat how easy it is to make, and it’s a nice change from regular coleslaw. Let’s say five stars, shall we?