Wasabi is plentiful here in Korea. You can purchase bags of wasabi powder or paste at just about any supermarket. What am I saying? Gosh, wasn’t that just the understatement of the year? What I am getting at is that really anything with a nice spicy kick is plentiful here! Mr. B and I feel that wasabi is one of those ingredients you either love or don’t. For us, we are addicted to the fiery, nose-clearing unexpected heat that takes over the palate. Yes, we are oddballs.. but oh it’s so good!
We recently picked up a new cookbook by Max and Eli Sussman, “The Best Cookbook Ever”. Cocky title right? We were instantly drawn to the exciting recipes like carrot wasabi soup. If you ever have tasted carrot ginger soup this recipe is very similar only edgier with you guessed it, wasabi.
The soup is rather simple and it has you start off by coating your plump carrots in olive oil and roasting in the over. I feel that this one simple factor truly brings out the flavors of the carrots more in the soup. After roasting you then toss the carrots into a blender or food processor with water and the remaining ingredients, rice vinegar, mirin, sesame oil, and wasabi. The only two adaptations we made to the recipe was we used baby sweet peas instead of sugar snap peas, as well as we would cut the rice vinegar amount in half. Overall Mr. B and I throughly enjoyed the soup and will serve it cold or hot in the future with some dinner guest. Truth be told, I’ve had so much of the soup this week I believe I am starting to get an orangish tint.
Continuing on with our wasabi weekdays kick, we also made salmon sandwiches with wasabi and pickled ginger for dinner one night. What an interesting delicious twist of ingredients on this sandwich! It was light and just a perfect paring for the warmer Spring temperatures we have been enjoying.
Salmon Sandwiches with Wasabi and Pickled Ginger
Slightly adapted from
Ingredients:
1/4 Cup olive oil mayonnaise
1 Teaspoon wasabi paste
2 Cups (14.75-ounce can) canned Alaskan wild salmon, drained
8 Slices of Ezekiel bread, toasted
4 Thin slices red onion
4 Thin rings yellow bell pepper
4 Teaspoons sliced pickled ginger
1 Cup arugula
Directions:
Combine the mayonnaise and wasabi paste and stir until smooth. Taste. Add in more wasabi, if desired, to tickle your fancy. Gently fold in the salmon.
Place 4 slices of the bread on a work surface and top each with the salmon mixture, 1 onion slice separated into rings, 1 pepper ring, 1 teaspoon ginger, and 1/4 cup arugula. Top with the remaining 4 slices of bread. Enjoy!
So what are your thoughts are on wasabi?
Do you think you could handle the carrot wasabi soup? (Honestly, it wasn’t that spicy)
What’s cooking in your kitchen this weekend?