digest
Short Summary
Main recommendation: Make Jamie Geller's California Avocado Salad, a corn-based salad with yellow and white corn, hearts of palm, grape tomatoes, red onion, avocado, and a Japanese-style plum-vinegar and sesame dressing, served as a Shabbos starter. The recipe is from Jamie's first book, Quick and Kosher, and the video shows how to build it step by step.
Key Points
- Use one can of white corn and one can of yellow corn so the salad has two colors; the speaker says white corn is slightly sweeter and yellow has a milder flavor.
- Cut the grape tomatoes lengthwise into long, thin pieces rather than short, fat ones, and cut them crosswise as well.
- The technique of dicing and scooping the avocado into squares, and the tip of putting the pit in the bowl to prevent browning (with a caution about accidentally swallowing it), were taught by Jamie's husband's wife Anita, as relayed by Rabbi Lawrence; Jamie notes an alternative is to dice the avocado last, right before serving.
- The dressing is built from olive oil, plum vinegar (a salty Japanese vinegar), and toasted sesame oil, with no added salt or spices.
- If avocados are hard or unripe, frozen shelled edamame can be added for the same green color, an idea credited to their neighbor Adena Mower, who now uses it as a regular part of her recipe.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions:
- Combine one can of white corn and one can of yellow corn.
- Cut about 15 grape tomatoes lengthwise and crosswise into thin strips.
- Thinly slice half a red onion.
- Add about half a jar of hearts of palm (the book calls for half, but since the kids love it, they sometimes use the whole jar), drained, and cut as desired.
- Dice two avocados (the speaker sometimes uses three), scooping out the squares; add them just before eating if serving later.
- Dress with two teaspoons of olive oil, plum vinegar, rice vinegar, and a small amount of toasted sesame oil; check labels for kosher certification.
- If avocados aren't ripe, use frozen shelled edamame, which the speaker says gives the same green color.
- Use a glass serving dish so the colors show; the speaker says the salad is often served as a starter, though it can also be kept on the table for the main course.
- The speaker notes the salad often doesn't last through Shabbos and recommends doubling or tripling the recipe.
- The speaker suggests buying hearts of palm in a glass jar so you can see that the pieces are uniform.
Bottom Line
This is a quick, colorful kosher corn-and-avocado salad whose flavor comes from the plum-vinegar and sesame-oil dressing, and it can be adapted with edamame when avocados aren't ready.
