Forest Spring Vegetable Basket

basket1

This is one of the recipes I created and submitted for my final in Matthew Kenney‘s fundamentals course. All ingredients you can find only in spring time and probably only in Japan, but you can easy to replace them to your local spring greens. I made it look like a round basket from young burdock’s root chips and some flowers. This basket has very crunchy taste. Inside of the basket – blooming broccolini, shoots of Aralia, Ostrich fern and I added sesame dressing which is rich flavour.

Recipe:

chips3Chips

  • Gobo (burdock root), ostrich fern, lotus root, aralia, yellow flowers and baby corn
  • 1 cup cashews, soaked
  • ½ bell pepper, seeded and chopped
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 1/2 tablespoon nutritional yeast
  • 1/2 white miso
  • ½ teaspoon salt

Lotus chips: same recipe, but without bell pepper and I added 1 teaspoon of kale powder to make light green color.

Aralia-elata-or-Japanese-angelica-tree     chipscips2      basket

Clean burdock root from dust with brush and wash well. Cut burdock root very long and thinly (Julienne cut). Put cut burdock roots to cold water for 15-30 min (this will help to remove a bitter taste). Using a mandolin, slice lotus very thin (about 1/16 inch) and soak them in cold water for 15-30 minutes. Ostrich fern, aralia clean from dust with water and dry. Baby corn cut in half. Flowers (I used yellow color, but if you can find different color its nice) snap to small pieces.

Sesame Dressing

  • 1/2 cup cashews, soaked
  • 1/4 cup pine nuts
  • 2 tablespoon lime juice
  • 1 tablespoon sesame oil
  • 1 tablespoon sesame seeds flour
  • 1 tablespoon tahini
  • 1 inch fresh ginger
  • 1 tablespoon tamari
  • 1 tablespoon agave
  • Pinch salt
  • 1/4 water or more if needed

Blend until very smooth. I made a very thick sauce, but you can add more water to make it more fluid.

ASSEMBLY

Put cashew, bell pepper, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, miso and salt in blender. For lotus chips blend cashew, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, miso, kale powder and salt. Blend until very smooth. Using your hands, massage blended mixture onto veggies. Make a round shape basket from burdock roots and flowers. Put this basket and other veggies separate on teflex sheets and dehydrate at 105 overnight or until coating is dry. Slide onto mesh screens and dehydrate 24 hours, until very crisp.

basket2

This is very beautiful dish and not easy to make, very spring japanese raw recipe! 🙂