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. 

Homemade Teriyaki Sauce

Teriyaki is a soy sauce based Japanese sauce used to glaze meats and fish before and during cooking. I love the sauce name, because I once had an acquaintance named Terry, who loved to talk, giving me the opening to dub him, "Terry Yackey." Hahaha! (RING! RING!) Me- "Hello." Voice on the telephone- "Hey Randy! It's Terry Yackey!" Me-"I'm going to be busy." Terry Yackey-"How long?"
Me-"Until I die."    

1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup pineapple juice
1/4 cup sweet mirin (sweet rice wine) * 
1 1/2  teaspoons fresh ginger, minced  
1 teaspoon garlic, minced
5 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 cup cold water
1 to 2 tablespoons of sesame seeds (toast them a minute or 2 in a dry pan; that is, NO oil)
(Optional) 1 or 2 teaspoons of dark sesame oil (it adds great flavor)

Mix all but cornstarch, 1/4 cup of water, sesame oil and sesame seeds, in a sauce pan and heat over medium low heat, simmer for 4 to 5 minutes. Mix cornstarch and cold water in a cup and stir to make sure cornstarch is combined. Add to the sauce in pan and stir very well. Heat and stir until sauce thickens to desired thickness, add toasted sesame seeds, and sesame oil, if using, and stir well.

* Available in Asian markets, or in the Asian section of many supermarkets. 

 I put some of the teriyaki sauce on a white plate so it would show well. You can see the sesame seeds and maybe some bits of garlic or ginger.

WORD HISTORY:
Sesame-This word is for a plant that provides seeds used to obtain their oil, and the dried seeds are used to coat bread or rolls or as ingredients in some recipes. The word's origin is very likely the Semitic language family centered in the Middle East region. The most common modern Semitic languages are Arabic, Amharic, Hebrew and Tigrinya,^ but in ancient times it included Phoenician and Akkadian (spoken by the Babylonians). Phoenician was also spoken in North Africa by the Carthaginians, a people who had much contact with the Romans and Greeks. Ancient Greek borrowed the word, as "sesamon," from one of these Semitic languages, and then Latin borrowed the word from Greek as "sisamum." This gave French "sisame," and this was borrowed by English in the early 1400s, although its more general acceptance and usage in English did not occur until circa 1800, when the English translation of the Arabian Nights' story of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" became popular, along with the magic words, "Open sesame!" 

^ Arabic and Hebrew are commonly known in much of Europe and North America, but Amharic is spoken in a large part of Ethiopia. Tigrinya is also spoken in parts of Ethiopia and Eritrea, another East African nation.