Salted sesame and dark chocolate cookies
Plus a sesame soy dressing and where to get good Japanese ingredients!
Hello !
It’s scorcher here in Melbourne today, well all weekend really, and so I’ve been inside with the air conditioning, recipe testing for something very exciting coming up later this year! Will share more on this soon!
The coming week is rather busy with the start of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival! I’m so excited to be highlighting Maltese cooking with Jacqui Challinor at NOMAD for our sold out event!
Today I wanted to share with you two of my favorite recipes with sesame as the hero.
First up it’s a salad which looks like a coleslaw, and I suppose is a coleslaw, but it’s got perfectly poached chicken and a VERY GOOD sesame soy dressing so is more of a Japanese salad. Honestly, I use this dressing on a lot of my salads. I shared one similar here - but with slightly different proportions and ginger instead of garlic. The key to this one today though is the white soy, if you can get it! If not, go for a light soy and check for seasoning (you may need to add a little salt)! You can also vary the veg, depending on what you have on hand. Radish and cucumber would be nice in there too, and sometimes I even put some kale or apple in there for green and sweetness respectively. The dressing though, a game changer!
I get asked a lot about where I buy the Japanese ingredients I use in my recipes! For basics, I go to Hinoki in Collingwood, but for the premium/artinisinal/ traditionally made stuff, my go-to is Good Grub Hub! You can order online and truly, all of their products are next level amazing!! This is the white soy we use, super tasty!
I was really on the sesame train and made these chewy, salty, addictive salted sesame and dark chocolate cookies too! Recipe below for paid subscribers! It makes 20 and I bake half, and keep the other half in the freezer for emergencies! I actually forgot to add flaky salt to the finished cookies so you might notice that in the pictures. They are actually fine without too, but the salt does level out the sweetness nicely!
I hope you’re enjoying these newsletters and recipes! Feel free to leave a comment, I love hearing from you!
Julia x
SESAME AND SOY CHICKEN CABBAGE SALAD
Serves 4
2 skinless chicken breast fillets (around 400 g)
1 tbsp sake
2 spring onions, finely sliced, plus extra to serve
¼ white cabbage (around 500 g), finely sliced
½ red onion, finely sliced
1 carrot, peeled very finely julienned (I do this on a mandolin)
1 tbsp roasted sesame seeds, plus extra to serve
Sesame dressing
80 g tahini
3 tbsp white soy sauce
2 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tsp sesame oil
1 clove garlic, finely grated
Salt, to taste
For the chicken, place into a small saucepan and cover with water and the sake and a pinch of salt. Bring to a simmer over a medium-high heat, reduce to low and cook for 3 minutes then turn off and allow the chicken to continue cooking in the poaching liquid for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, remove from the poaching liquid (keep for later) and set aside. Once cool, slice.
Combine all of the salad ingredients in a large bowl and toss to combine.
Bring the poaching liquid up to the boil and simmer for 2-3 minutes. Whisk all of the dressing ingredients together and thin out with 1-2 tbsp of the reserved poaching liquid. Check for seasoning.
Add the chicken to the salad and pour over the dressing. Toss well to combine and top with extra sesame seeds and spring onions.
Add more spring onions to the broth and serve alongside the salad.
SALTED SESAME AND DARK CHOCOLATE COOKIES
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