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Hi, how are you doing?
It's Russell.
In this video I'm going to show you
how to make an Asian chopped salad.
And we're going to have a little bit of fun with it.
And you should only really watch this video
if you want to get a new piece of kitchen equipment.
And I'm kind of only joking, but not really.
It's one of these.
You may have seen this before.
You may have seen how people use them, and maybe
just thought they were used for herbs.
But actually, we're going to make an Asian chopped salad
with this.
It's going to be really quick.
It's going to give a different cut
to what you're used to with your knife.
It's going to be a bit more fun, and just going
to be very quick.
So it's the type of stuff we do in our Weekday Raw course.
So we've got a kind of spring themed Asian chopped salad
here.
You can see we've got these amazing fresh ingredients
in front of us.
And we're aiming really to have this be for one to two people.
So we've got some Chinese Leaf, or Napa, cabbage.
And what we're going to do is just start building this up--
laying this out on a nice sized chopping board in front of us.
With a view to to-- as I say-- feeding one to two people.
So I'll probably just do this for one person,
just to demonstrate this.
Maybe just take it down to a couple of leaves.
Two or three leaves.
And then the rest of the stuff, we're
going to do-- before we get it on there, just a rough chop.
So same with the carrot.
We'll just do kind of quarter.
And a rough chop.
Sprinkle that in there.
Then we've got this beautiful organic cucumber.
On top there.
A few cashews.
So we've a quarter of a cup of cashews in there.
And that's between two people.
So you know, just a couple of tablespoons of cashews.
Not too much at all.
Then we've got some beautiful fresh mint.
And we'll just take the big stalks off of those.
But the rest can just go in as it is.
And same with the coriander, or cilantro.
You can actually just go in with all of those.
Unless there's really huge stalks on there,
just pop it all in.
It's already looking really cool on the board as it is.
Some mangetout, or snow peas, you might know them as.
Some red cabbage.
A few of these big red cabbage leaves.
And this builds up really quickly.
So I start off with the intention of it just
being for one person, but it really
does-- it builds up quickly.
And you can see these beautiful colors coming together.
And then I'm just literally going
to tear off some broccoli florets.
Maybe just cut that bigger one in two.
So really, really quick.
Lots of fun.
Let's put this knife to the side.
And then you're going to come over,
and initially you're just chopping down.
Still going from left to right, or right to left.
Depending on what you find easiest.
And then gathering it up again if you need to.
And when it gets down to a certain point,
you'll be able to do this kind of thing.
And I got this idea from a friend of mine
who mentioned-- you'll loose a couple of bits
on the floor in the process, but don't worry about it--
a friend of mine who mentioned there's a salad bar in the US.
I think they've got a branch in Washington DC.
And one in Dallas, I think, as well.
It's called Chopped.
And you go in there and you choose your salad.
And they just get all your salad bowl,
tip it out onto a board like this,
and chop it right in front of you.
And you choose your dressing.
I think they use really good ingredients there, as well.
So check them out if you're ever in the area.
And you've just got this amazing variety of cuts.
And colors.
And chunkiness.
And lots of smaller bits.
Not something to get the kids involved in though.
Normally when something's fun like this I'll say,
get the kids involved.
But these knives are ridiculously sharp.
So, I think we're just about done.
I mean, it just looks amazing with all those colors.
It makes me kind of just want to take a photo of it
right on the board now.
But I'm going to get it into a bowl,
and get some dressing on it.
Put that to one side.
Just gather up your salad.
The smell-- the smell from the coriander, cilantro,
and the mint-- we put quite a bit of mint in there.
It's just coming through beautifully.
OK, so then if you look on your recipe--
either you'll see the recipe below this video,
or a link to the recipe-- take your dressing
which is essentially dates, orange juice, garlic,
ginger, olive oil, and put some chili powder in there.
If you've got some harissa-- I put some harissa powder
in here, which is a mix of spices.
You can look that up online.
Beautiful sweet, spicy dressing.
You can add just a touch of sesame oil
if you wanted to, as well.
We've got salt in there as well.
So this should be seasoned up nicely.
But of course we're going to do that final-- as I always
say-- that final test for seasoning,
once we've covered everything in dressing.
And how much dressing you put on is really
going to be a personal preference, you know.
I actually like quite a lot of dressing.
So maybe just a little bit more.
I'm getting everything messy now.
I've got salad on my hands, I've got salad on the Vitamix jug
handle.
It's OK.
You can just put all those words to one side.
I like to work neat and tidy, but when I'm making this salad
it just all goes out the window.
And here we can see we've got just these amazing textures.
We've got pieces of almost whole cashew in there.
It's going to be an amazing crunch.
We've got the sweetness.
And hopefully we've got the saltiness seasoning just
right as well.
So let's have a little taste and see where we're at.
It tastes really good.
I'm going to put just a little bit more seasoning on there.
I'm going to re-put my fork back in there
because this is only for me.
So there's no double dipping for anyone else.
Mix that up and try it again.
Mmm, yeah.
So good.
Absolutely fantastic.
Just the right mix of salty, sweet, and spicy.
A little bit of fat in there as well, to carry the flavors.
So that's a really quick, easy, good looking, and definitely
tasty salad that you can whip up.
With your new kitchen tool, should you decide to go for it.
There you go.
Enjoy.