Kale Salad With an Asian Touch

Within the last couple of months, I've seen some Asian salads and I decided to do a recipe for one, although it isn't entirely "Asian," but close. To be totally up front, if you do not like teriyaki sauce, you very likely will not like this salad. Teriyaki sauce has a salty, somewhat sweet kind of taste. *   

Ingredients:

10 to 15 fresh kale leaves, stems and large veins removed, then roughly chopped
6 green onions, including much of the green, chopped
2 tablespoons teriyaki sauce 
3 tablespoons peanut oil
1 teaspoon sesame oil 
1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds 
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper 
(optional, if you like "heat") 1 to 2 teaspoons red chili flakes 
2 to 3 slices bread, cut into cubes for croutons
 
In a cup mix together the teriyaki sauce, the peanut oil, the sesame oil, the chili flakes (if using). Put the chopped kale and chopped green onion into a bowl. Mix in the teriyaki dressing, then sprinkle on the black pepper. Add some nicely browned croutons to each serving.

* For a recipe to make your own teriyaki sauce, here is the link: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2016/07/homemade-teriyaki-sauce.html

WORD HISTORY:
Toast-This word, very distantly related to "thirst(y)," a word from the Germanic roots of English, and to "torrid," a Latin derived word borrowed by English, goes back to Indo European "ters," which meant, "dry." This gave Latin the verb "torrere," which meant, "to char, to parch, to scorch, to roast." The participle form, used adjectivally, was "tostus" ("roasted, parched, charred"), which then produced the Latin/Italian verb "tostare," meaning, "to roast, to toast." which gave French "toster," meaning, "to roast, to grill, to toast." This was borrowed by English in the second half of the 1300s, initially as "tosten," before the modern form. By the first half of the 1400s, the verb had produced a noun "toast," meaning, "roasted or grilled bread with spices added to it, then added to wines and ales for flavoring," which by the 1700s came to be applied to a "call to drink such a beverage to the honor of someone." Also by about this time, the "roasted or grilled bread" meaning came to be used for such bread eaten as a serving on its own, without the spices, wine or ale. The latter two meanings were borrowed from English by German, and at least the "drink toast" meaning was borrowed by a number of languages, including Italian and French.