Thai Mango Salad

About a year ago I was in Thailand and to bring back the memories I looked up the recipe for Thai Mango Salad.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped peanuts
• 2 firm mangoes, (about 2 lbs/1 kg)
• 1 sweet red pepper
• 2 carrots, coarsely grated
• 4 cups torn mixed greens
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions
• 2 tbsp coarsely chopped fresh mint

Dressing:

• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tsp grated lime rind
• 2 tbsp lime juice
• 1 tbsp fish sauce or soy sauce
• 2 tsp granulated sugar
• 1 tsp minced hot pepper
• 1/4 tsp each salt and pepper

Toast peanuts over medium heat until fragrant and dark golden, about 8 minutes. Stay by the pan, don't burn any. Set aside.


Thinly slice mangoes lengthwise. Thinly slice red pepper and remove the pepper seeds and the core.

In large bowl, whisk together oil, lime rind and juice, fish sauce, sugar, hot pepper, salt and pepper. Add mangoes, red pepper, carrots, mixed greens, green onions and mint; toss to coat. Serve sprinkled with peanuts.

Butternut Hummus

Hummus is a paste made from basically chickpeas and sesame seed paste (tahini). I recently came an article in which there spread was butternut hummus. I loved the idea so I got to work in my kitchen and this is what I did:

Ingredients:

• 1/2 butternut
• pepper
• salt
• garlic
• peanut oil
• sesame seed paste
• sriracha hot chili sauce

First of all you cut up the butternut up into dice of the same size and throw them in a bowl to coat them with (peanut) oil, pepper, salt and garlic. You put them in a preheated oven on 180 degrees Celsius and bake them until they are golden brown.

Once they are ready I 've put them in a tray and into the fridge so that the pieces can cool down. First I blended the butternut into a puree and then I added the sesame seed paste and blended it down again. I got a smooth sweet orange paste but it needed some kick (I just returned from South-East Asia and like my food spicy) so I added some sriracha chili sauce to it to finish it of with some heat and acidity.