Mashed Olives Salad Dressing

If no fish available, prawns can do!

Written by Money Tai Tai

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lahpet

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=15426

http://dawn-1o9.xanga.com/615518283/pickled-tea-leaves-salad-laphet-thote/

Last Friday night after a bite of Burmese lahpet (or laphed) salad introduced by my Burmese neighbor, I got addicted to it. If there is any tea leaves available now, ones would not be surprised that I could probably going to pickle my own Kuching lahpet. It is one of the best salads I ever tasted, its’ texture is unique. This is also one of the best dishes for vegetarians, you can eat the lahpet salad simply with the rice and you will feel very satisfy after the meal, and I heard that it is one of the most favorite dishes amongst Burmese students.

As laphet becomes a limited item even amongst limited numbers of Burmese in Kuching, my Burmese neighbor even gave me a pack, but I treasure it only for special occasion.

Lahpet is a fermented tea leaves, in wet form almost taste like Chinese pickled kan lan chai (pickled olive vegetable), but almost as hot as (mild) Kuching version Korean kimji. What Burmese did is they rolled the lahpet with a kind of big leaves into cylindrical long tube shape.

If you have this kind of cylindrical long tube in hand, what you do is once unwrapped it you have to rinse the lahpet with water in order to get rid of the strong tangy bitter tea taste. Prepare a mortar pounding the fermented tea leaves with green chili and slices of young ginger to half-mash. The laypet dressing is ready after you add salt, ajinomoto and at last add generous amount of sesame oil to the mash. Use (or use softened (by salt) long white cabbage) lettuce, cucumber or tomatoes, garnished with assorted Burmese laypet assorted crunchy nuts (fried dried prawns, pumpkin seeds, broad beans, chick peas, peanuts, and sesame seeds before adding laypet dressing.

So if ones really can’t get the fermented tea leaves, another converted version you can prepare easily is using the green preserved olives. Use the mashed olives to replace the laypet dressing; you can add olive oil instead of sesame oil in this case. For assorted nuts you can replace it with pine nuts, pumpkin seeds, peanuts, toasted sesame seeds, almond slice, broad beans, cashew nuts, walnuts.

Bon appetite!

Variations of Salad

Written by Mrs. Money

Cucumber Dills Salad

Cucumber cut into cubes, a handful of chopped dills, add yogurt and salt

Persian Salad

This Persian salad will be the best salad for BBQ.

Cut cucumber and tomatoes into cubes, add in salt, chopped onions, handfull of chopped cilandro and lemon juice (optional: olive)

Refreshing Salads

Created and Written on Oct. 7th, 2009 by Mrs. Money

Tomatoes in temperate countries are sweeter than our Malaysian home grown tomatoes due to their summer time sunlight is more than 12 hours; I always joked that our Malaysians should light on a special kind of solar light right onto our tomatoes patches before dark… let the plants enjoyed 18 hours solar light, let’s see if we also can get as quick grow, as big and as sweet tomatoes!

Salad 1

Ingredients:
10 organic tomatoes
1 organic cucumber
10 olives (either black or green)
2 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
1 onion
A handful of coriander
(Can use dill or parsley as alternative)
1 lemon
1 teaspoon salt

Procedure:
Cut tomatoes into pieces
Cut cucumber into cubes (get rid of seeds)
Chop onion finely
Chop Coriander finely
Squeeze the lemon

Mixed everything together
Store in refrigerator for an hour before serving

Warning: This is a sour salad

Salad 2

Created and written on Nov. 2nd, 2009 by Mrs. Money

Surprising for me towards the eve of tomatoes harvesting, another new patch emerged few giant Roma tomatoes from two particular tomato plants, obviously one of the very different kind of Roma hybric species. I happily harvested the limited fresh giant tomatoes to create another kind of refreshing tomatoes salad dish for lunch during this hot afternoon.

At the end of the meal, I was thinking to lick the plate. I will make sure I will grow enough of this giant Roma to share with all my special friends and relatives in next round.

I realize that if ones are not interested in cooking they won't browse through recipe section. A good chef really never needs ones to tell them how much exactly the ingredients are in a dish, they can just do it with their basic instinct.

Ingredients:

Ripe Giant Roma Tomatoes

Cucumber

Pine nuts

Fresh dills and basils

Apple cider vinegar

Olive

Extravirgin olive oil

Salt

Procedure:

Slice cucumber and cut tomatoes into pieces

Mix together with vinegar, finely chopped herbs, olive oil and salt

Granish with pine nuts and olive