Smoked Salmon Salad with Roasted Sesame Dressing


Date Published: July 24th, 2020 | Last Updated: July 24th, 2020
Author: Abby |Category: salad, healthy, quick and easy, <15 mins, asian
Serves: 1 person as a main, or 2-3 as a side salad
Prep time: 8 mins | Cook time: 30 seconds to toss the salad

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I love this salad. It’s so flavourful, satisfying, and best of all it’s really easy and quick. You can easily customize it too. I came up with it one morning while trying to make a quick lunch for the fam and at the same time clearing the fridge of ingredients – I never expected it to turn out so good!

This recipe sounds fancy smancy but it’s the quickest most ridiculously easy salad to put together as long as you have roasted sesame dressing on hand. You can make the dressing yourself from scratch (the recipe is on my to-do list to upload, I swear), but often times I let the good people at Kewpie do the hard work for me especially if I’m in a rush or just feeling extra lazy. Kewpie does such a fantastic job with this dressing that Toby and I like to keep a 1L bottle in the fridge and use it on SO many things as a dipping sauce – I highly recommend picking up a bottle next time you’re at an Asian grocer.

Roasted sesame dressing is commonly seen in many Japanese restaurants served on their side salads in bento boxes. It’s a creamy dressing that’s packed with roasted sesame flavour. It elevates the most basic salads to another level, including this one. While you can use this dressing with virtually any salad ingredient, I found that when you pair it with smoked salmon, something absolutely magical happens. The heavy savoury smoked salmon paired with the dressing is balanced out by the fresh crisp veggies that results in a refreshing salad with a heap of flavour.

Next time you’re in a rush to pack lunch but still want something delicious and healthy, think of this salad! Or better yet, next time you’re inviting people over for a dinner party but you’ve exhausted all your energy on the main dish, you can quickly whip up this salad as a starter or a side dish to impress.

I’ve written this recipe with veggies I commonly have in my fridge as a staple in most of my salads (lettuce, cherry tomatoes, red bell peppers/capsicums, and cucumbers) but of course you can change it up to whatever veggies you like such as grated carrot, radishes, spinach, red onions…etc. This recipe is so easily customizable. The only thing I don’t usually pair with this dressing is cheese. I find that the creaminess of the dressing tends to overpower most cheeses so why bother adding it in – fewer calories, amiright?

Anyways, without further ado, here’s the recipe!

Happy cooking!

Ingredients you’ll need:

  • 2 handfuls of lettuce, washed and shredded
  • 1 handful of cherry tomatoes, sliced in halves
  • 1 handful of cucumber, chopped
  • 1 handful of red bell pepper/capsicum, chopped
  • 50g smoked salmon, sliced – you can use smoked trout as well which I find is usually cheaper and tastes very close to smoked salmon
  • Kewpie roasted sesame dressing to taste
  • Freshly ground black pepper

Feel free to customize the ingredients to whatever you like or whatever you’ve got in your fridge. The bold flavours of the salmon and the dressing makes this salad pretty forgiving with whatever veggies you want to chuck in it.

Directions:

Mix everything together in a large bowl and toss with as much dressing as your heart desires. Done!

I hope you enjoyed this recipe as much as I do. Let me know how yours turned out in the comments! You can follow me on instagram, youtube and facebook to see all the recipes I post!

Summarized Recipe:

Smoked salmon salad with roasted sesame dressing

Date Published: July 24th, 2020 | Last Updated: July 24th, 2020
Author: Abby |Category: salad, healthy, quick and easy, <15 mins, asian
Serves: 1 person as a main, or 2-3 as a side salad
Prep time: 8 mins | Cook time: 30 seconds to toss the salad

Ingredients:

  • 2 handfuls of lettuce, washed and shredded
  • 1 handful of cherry tomatoes, sliced in halves
  • 1 handful of cucumber, chopped
  • 1 handful of red bell pepper/capsicum, chopped
  • 50g smoked salmon, sliced
  • Kewpie roasted sesame dressing to taste
  • Freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

  1. Mix everything together in a large bowl and toss with as much dressing as your heart desires. Done!

AbbyLeave a comment

Spicy Asian Tuna Salad


Date Published: July 4th, 2020 | Last Updated: July 4th, 2020
Author: Abby |Category: sides/salads, <15mins
Serves: 4 | Prep time: 10mins | Cook time: 5mins

Jump to recipe | Watch the video

Last weekend Toby’s dad took us deep sea tuna fishing with a fishing charter in Portland, Vic. My fishing experience is fairly limited but thankfully the charter set up all the rods for us, so all we had to do was wait until a tuna caught on and we take turns reeling them in. Luckily mine didn’t put up too much of a fight but Toby’s gave him a good workout. There was a limit of two tuna per person. We drove around for hours and caught some here and there, but alas we were two fish short of our max. We were on the boat for roughly 6 hours total. We took 4 fish home in total, ranging from 10-15kg (good thing Toby’s parents have a big freezer back on the farm). We youtube’d how to fillet a tuna and we filleted one tuna that night and have been eating it ever since. I’ve been scrambling to find some good tuna recipes and came upon some asian-inspired ones and played around with them. This recipe is the result of it! (I also used up some tuna in the salmon chowder recipe and subbed out the fish type – turned out delicious!)

This recipe has asian-inspired flavours. Some ingredients aren’t very traditionally asian (like the cranberries and raw carrots), but they have their role to play and I promise the overall flavour packs a punch! You end up with a mildly spicy, kinda sweet, crunchy, sesame tuna salad in the end. This recipe is easy and comes together quickly! You can watch the video below to guide you through the recipe.

Anyways, without further ado, here’s the recipe! If you have any comments or suggestions, I’d love to hear from you in the comment section! You can follow me on instagram, youtube and facebook to see all the recipes I post!

Happy cooking!

Ingredients you’ll need:

  • Dressing:
    • 4 Tbsp mayonnaise
    • 1 Tbsp sesame oil
    • 2 tsp light soy sauce
    • 2 Tbsp asian chilli paste or sambal (I like to use the Lao Gan Ma crispy chilli oil (drained), but any chilli paste should do – you may want to adjust the proportions if your chilli sauce is very spicy). You can even use sriracha.
    • 1 1/2 tsp honey
    • 1/2 Tbsp ginger, grated
  • 200g cooked or canned tuna, flaked and drained well
    • You can use canned tuna, but for my purposes I was trying to use up the tuna fillets from our fishing trip so I quickly cooked the tuna in the oven at 180˚C for 10mins and flaked it for this recipe.
  • 1/3 cup dried cranberries
  • 3 Tbsp green onions, chopped (~2 stalks)
  • 1/3 cup carrots, chopped finely
  • 2 tsp sesame seeds
  • 1/2 tsp chilli powder
  • 2 Tbsp lemon juice

I was quite conservative with the spice level in this recipe – just spicy enough to leave your mouth with a slight tingle. You can choose to omit the chili powder altogether if you’re not into spicy or even double it if you’re a spice fiend. The spiciness of your chili paste will also determine how spicy your tuna salad is.

Directions:

In a bowl, mix together the dressing ingredients: mayonnaise, sesame oil, light soy sauce, asian chilli oil, honey, ginger. Set aside.

In a bigger bowl, mix together the rest of the ingredients: tuna, cranberries, green onion, carrots, sesame seeds, chili powder and lemon juice. Once combined, add in the dressing and mix until incorporated. Serve!

You can serve this as a snack or appetizer or side dish. My favourite way to serve this is in some lettuce leaves as wraps. The crisp and freshness of the lettuce cuts through the heaviness of the salad. You can also have it with crackers or spread in a tortilla to make a burrito or even between some bread to make an easy tuna salad with a punch. I also like to serve it with lemon wedges for extra zing!

Watch the Video Tutorial!

Summarized Recipe:

Spicy Asian Tuna Salad

Date Published: July 4th, 2020 | Last Updated: July 4th, 2020
Author: Abby |Category: sides/salads, <15mins
Serves: 4 | Prep time: 10mins | Cook time: 5mins

Ingredients:

  • Dressing:
    • 4 Tbsp mayonnaise
    • 1 Tbsp sesame oil
    • 2 tsp light soy sauce
    • 2 Tbsp asian chilli oil (I like to use the Lao Gan Ma crispy chilli oil (drained), but any chilli oil/sauce should do – you may want to adjust the proportions if your chilli sauce is very spicy)
    • 1 1/2 tsp honey
    • 1/2 Tbsp ginger, grated
  • 1 1/2 cups (200g) cooked/canned tuna, flaked and drained
  • 1/3 cup dried cranberries
  • 3 Tbsp green onions, chopped (~2 stalks)
  • 1/3 cup carrots, chopped finely
  • 2 tsp sesame seeds
  • 1/2 tsp chilli powder
  • 2 Tbsp lemon juice

Directions:

  1. In a bowl, mix together the dressing ingredients: mayonnaise, sesame oil, light soy sauce, asian chilli oil, honey, ginger. Set aside.
  2. In a bigger bowl, mix together the rest of the ingredients: tuna, cranberries, green onion, carrots, sesame seeds, chili powder and lemon juice. Once combined, add in the dressing and mix until incorporated. Serve!

Notes:

  • You can serve this as a snack or appetizer or side dish.
  • My favourite way to serve this is in some lettuce leaves as wraps. You can also have it with crackers or spread in a tortilla to make a burrito or even between some bread to make an easy tuna salad with a punch.

Abby3 Comments

Char Kway Teow (Stir-fried flat noodles)


Date Published: July 1st, 2020 | Last Updated: July 1st, 2020
Author: Abby |Category: mains, Asian
Serves: 4-5 | Prep time: 15mins | Cook time: 10mins

Jump to recipe | Watch the video

WOOHOO!! The inaugural post of Polyphagic Abby! Welcome welcome. I’m so excited to share my favourite recipes with you!

I won’t muddle this recipe post by going into the hows and whys of starting up this food blog project in this post but if you’re interested, you can read about it here.

I’m new to the video blogging and food photography game, so don’t mind the occasional questionable camera work. We’re still working out the kinks. We’ve ordered a tripod that’s coming in the mail but I was too excited to start this blog to wait! I also got too excited taking videos of recipes that I forgot to take photos of the process as well, so don’t mind the video screenshots as part of the post for the first few recipes. heh heh.

My partner Toby rigging up the camera for my first recipe video hahaha. This is why the start of the video is a little shaky. Only 1 more week until our tripod arrives!

Toby and I have been religiously watching Masterchef 2020 lately. We’ve never watched a show so intently together before. Our favourite contestant Sarah Tiong was recently eliminated. I’ve always loved watching her put together amazing flavourful Asian dishes on the show and to my luck, she has just released a cookbook! I’ve been wanting to cook closer to my Asian roots lately and her cookbook was the perfect gateway. It’s full of amazing recipes. I absolutely recommend getting her cookbook “Sweet, Savoury, Spicy“. This char kway teow recipe was actually adapted from one of hers.

Char kway teow is a popular Malaysian/Singaporean dish. It’s a dish made from flat rice noodles (banh pho) and sautéed in Chinese sausage (lap cheong) and prawns. You can substitute the protein with anything you like and add in any extra veggies you like. This recipe is easy and cooks up quickly! You can watch the video below to guide you through the recipe.

Anyways, without further ado, here’s the recipe! If you have any comments or suggestions, I’d love to hear from you in the comment section! You can follow me on instagram, youtube and facebook to see all the recipes I post!

Happy cooking!

Ingredients you’ll need:

  • 1 packet (1kg) of cooked flat rice noodles (banh pho) – (375g uncooked packet = ~1kg cooked)
  • 1/3 cup (90ml) of any neutral tasting oil (you can substitute with pork lard for extra flavour)
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 large red shallots, finely chopped (can substitute with 1 red onion instead)
  • 2 medium red chilis, thinly sliced (optional)
  • 130g (~4 medium) lap cheong sausages, thinly sliced
  • 15 large fresh shrimp/prawns, shelled and deveined
  • 4 Tbsps (60ml) light soy sauce
  • 2 Tbsps (30ml) dark soy sauce
  • 1 Tbsp (16ml) oyster sauce
  • 1 Tbsp (16ml) fish sauce
  • 2 tsp sugar
  • 1 tsp ground black pepper
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 cups (200g) fresh bean sprouts
  • 2 large spring onions, cut into 2.5cm lengths

Directions:

I’d recommend having all of your ingredients prepped and ready within arm’s reach before starting this recipe. This recipe is quick and you’ll need everything one after another to ensure things don’t become overcooked since you’ll be cooking on high heat for the majority of the cook!

Cook the rice noodles according to package instructions. Different brands may differ. I bought the XL banh pho/rice stick with the three-headed elephant brand which instructed to cook the noodles in boiling water for 6-8 minutes then drain. Whatever the instructions may be, it should be fairly similar. Always taste the noodles before straining incase you need to keep them in a little longer. There’s nothing worse than tough noodles! Drain the noodles and set aside. You can add a little oil to the noodles to keep them from clumping together and easier to work with later or run them under cold water to stop them from cooking. Be gentle with the noodles so they don’t break apart.

In a large wok or skillet over high heat, add the oil (or lard) until the oil starts to smoke. Then add the garlic, shallots, chili and sausage. Stir-fry for about 30 seconds.

Add the prawns/shrimp to the pan and stir-fry for 1 minute. Shrimp cook very quickly. Don’t worry about cooking your shrimp all the way through at this stage. We just want to mix all the ingredients together. The shrimp will finish cooking once you reach the end of the recipe.

Add in the rice noodles to the pan and mix with the other ingredients while gently breaking up the noodles. Take your time making sure the noodles are mixed thoroughly and clump free without breaking them.

Once mixed, add in: light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, fish sauce, sugar and black pepper (you can combine these ingredients into a bowl first and then toss it all into the wok at once for ease). Stir-fry until combined.

Make a well in the centre of the pan and add the egg. Scramble it quickly until the egg is a little lumpy (~20 seconds), then mix it together with everything in the pan to continue cooking the egg.

Notice the little clumps of cooked egg in the centre? If you like to have more visually obvious eggs in your char kway teow, you can scramble the eggs further by leaving it in the well longer before mixing it in with the rest of the ingredients.

Add bean sprouts and green onion and mix for another 2mins. Turn off the heat and serve immediately. Enjoy!

Yum!!!

Watch the Char Kway Teow Video Tutorial

Summarized Recipe:

Char Kway Teow (Stir fried flat noodles)

Date Published: June 27th, 2020 | Last Updated: June 27th, 2020
Author: Abby |Category: mains, asian
Serves: 4 – 5 | Prep time: 15mins | Cook time: 10mins

Ingredients:

  • 1 packet of cooked flat rice noodles (banh pho) – (375g uncooked packet = ~1kg cooked)
  • 1/3 cup (90ml) of any neutral tasting oil (can substitute with pork lard for extra flavour)
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 large red shallots, finely chopped (can substitute with 1 red onion instead)
  • 2 medium red serrano chilis, thinly sliced (optional)
  • 130g (~4 medium) lap cheong sausages, thinly sliced
  • 15 large fresh shrimp/prawns, shelled and deveined
  • 4 Tbsps (60ml) light soy sauce
  • 2 Tbsps (30ml) dark soy sauce
  • 1 Tbsp (16ml) oyster sauce
  • 1 Tbsp (16ml) fish sauce
  • 2 tsp sugar
  • 1 tsp ground black pepper
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 cups (200g) fresh bean sprouts
  • 2 large spring onions, cut into 2.5cm lengths

Directions:

  1. Cook the rice noodles according to package instructions. Drain and set aside. You can add a little oil to the noodles to keep them from clumping together.
  2. In a large wok or skillet over high heat, add the oil (or lard) until the oil starts to smoke. Then add the garlic, shallots, chili and sausage. Stir-fry for about 30 seconds.
  3. Add the prawns/shrimp to the pan and stir-fry for 1 minute.
  4. Add in the rice noodles to the pan and mix with the other ingredients while gently breaking up the noodles.
  5. Once mixed, add in: light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, fish sauce, sugar and black pepper. Stir-fry until combined.
  6. Make a well in the centre of the pan and add the egg. Scramble it quickly until the egg is a little lumpy (~20 seconds), then mix it together with everything in the pan to continue cooking the egg.
  7. Add bean sprouts and green onion and mix for another 2mins. Turn off the heat and serve immediately. Enjoy!

AbbyLeave a comment