Saturday 31 May 2014

Creamy Peanut Salad Dressing : LTU Milk


As you all know, I love salads and a great salad needs a great salad dressing. There are many types and brands of salad dressings on the supermarket shelves but nothing beats making your own at home. I found another fantastic homemade salad dressing last Thursday courtesy of Mr Arthur Wee. This is his late aunt's recipe and it uses ingredients that we can easily find at home or the supermarket.



One of the ingredients used is salad cream and the only salad cream that I have known all my life is Heinz Salad Cream. This was introduced to me by my mum when I was a little girl. My family swears by Heinz salad cream and we use it for making coleslaw and potato salad. I even like having it with just hard boiled eggs.


My favorite salted peanuts.

This dressing also uses one raw egg and according to Arthur, the vinegar cooks the egg. I am game to have the raw egg but if you have reservations, I suggest that you use pasteurized eggs. I have used pasteurized raw eggs when making Tiramisu and no one in my family has suffered any ill effects. 


Blend egg with vinegar. 

Now on to the dressing! I followed Arthur's instructions and blended the raw egg and vinegar first. As with home style recipes, Arthur did not mention how much vinegar to use and I reckon one tablespoon should suffice. After that I poured the whole bottle of salad cream into the blender. There is usually some salad cream sticking to the bottle and being the stingy person that I am, I poured some evaporated milk (the next ingredient) into the bottle, gave it a good shake and poured whatever salad cream that I could salvage into the blender.


Crushed peanuts. Actually I put it into the spice mill and used the pulse function to get this texture.

I was not sure if I should add the remaining evaporated milk because I was afraid that the dressing would be too runny (I was very naive). But since Arthur used the whole can of milk, I did the same and dumped the crushed peanuts in as well. Whizzzzz.....I blended the ingredients for quite some time to ensure that everything was well mixed and properly emulsified. And sure enough, the dressing was creamy and thick. Not too runny in the least.


Creamy and delicious dressing.

Now, for some finger licking. I dipped my finger into the dressing and had a taste. mmmmmmmmMMMMMMMM!!!! Wow, Arthur! This is so good! Really, really good! I admit at first that I was iffy about the evaporated milk. I am not a milk person but I was willing to try this recipe. And no regrets. All the ingredients complimented each other so well and I could hardly taste the milk. I did not have to adjust for any seasoning as the dressing was sweet enough for me and since I used salted peanuts, I did not need to add salt.


Some of the dressing splashed onto the blender lid while it was whizzing away. Guess what happened next? Shhh.....
My only regret was that I should have added another packet of crushed peanuts. You see, I bought only two packets (total 80g) and looking back, Arthur used 120g of crushed peanuts. That amount is about right and I should have had the presence of mind to make sure that that was the amount of peanuts I should have bought. I tried looking for Tong Garden roasted peanuts when I went out to Aeon but they had all sorts of other nuts and not peanuts! I settled for a local brand but sadly the peanuts were not good at all. They were under-roasted and did not taste good :(



Anyway, the dressing was already awesome and I decided to make a meat free salad. I have been eating too much meat lately and I thought I would give my digestive system a rest. I had the usual salad greens, cucumbers, sweet peppers, tomatoes and onions. For the protein, I settled for hard boiled eggs and pan fried beancurd.



This salad dressing does get very thick when stored in the fridge. All you need to do is take it out from the fridge about 20-30 minutes before serving. It is also great as a dip for vegetables like carrots, cucumbers and celery. 



So, if you love creamy salad dressings with the fragrance of peanuts, what are you waiting for? Make this dressing pronto! 










Creamy Peanut Salad Dressing
Recipe source : Still Crazy After All These Years

Ingredients :
- 1 bottle Heinz Salad Cream
- 1 can evaporated milk
- 120g crushed peanuts and more for sprinkling
- 1 raw egg
- 1 tablespoon distilled vinegar

Method :
1. Put egg and vinegar in blender and blend for a few seconds.
2.  Add salad cream, evaporated milk and crushed peanuts.
3. Blend until the mixture is thick and creamy.
4. Use immediately or pour into a container and store in the fridge.

Notes :
1. It is important that you use adequate crushed peanuts to get that full nutty flavor. Additional crushed peanuts for sprinkling on the salad is optional but highly recommended.
2. This dressing becomes quite thick when stored in the fridge. I recommend that you take it out from the fridge about 20 to 30 minutes before serving.
3. I learnt from Arthur that it is alright to keep the dressing the fridge for a few days. I reckon one week should be OK.




Photobucket

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs Up organised by Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids and Doreen of My Little Favourite DIY and hosted by Tze of Awayofmind Bakery House.

39 comments:

  1. Hi Phong Hong...

    Stingy does not spell no good. It is good, most of the time! Hahaha... read that, coming from a stingy person too! Hehehe...

    Alaaaa your 'mmmmmmmmMMMMMMMM!!!!' makes my mind huru hara la... must be really nice ni... huwaaa.. malas want to go out to get the ingredients. Later la... later la.... later la.... hahaha.. i pujuk diri sendiri okay....

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    1. hah..hah..hah...Mama you must try this recipe! Sedap tau! Jangan malas-malas hee..hee..

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  2. Wow! That's fast! You made it already! Oooooo....Tong Garden peanuts, so expensive. One packet, so few inside...RM3-4, I think. Would need to use quite a few.

    I would add sugar to counter the sourish taste of the vinegar and the cream - I guess some prefer their salad dressing sourish.

    Can keep for a long time in the fridge - as long as you would keep an opened can of evaporated milk, not a problem plus like I said, the vinegar would have "cooked" the egg.

    Whenever we made, it never lasted too long though - eat every day ulam style, no need to cook a vegetable dish - just dip cut cucumber, sliced tomato, lettuce leaves...and eat and it is so nice I would be very "generous" in the dipping. Hehehehehe!!!!

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    1. I simply couldn't wait hee..hee...It was really good! I should have added more peanuts. This one cost me RM1.25 for 42g packet. Expensive but taste good. Will definitely do for family gatherings. We eat a lot of salad!

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  3. Hi Phong Hong, another great salad dressing that I must try. I can have this salad for light lunch would be good. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. Kimmy, this dressing is pretty good but remember that you must put more roasted peanuts. So fragrant and appetizing!

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  4. Hi Phong Hong,
    My family love peanuts. Peanuts in salad dressing, yes, yes, yes!!
    Can I use raw peanuts, toast to cook it before using.? The TG brand is a bit pricy .. lol
    Thanks for sharing this to LTU!

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    1. That's what we did in the past - a whole lot nicer but it was such a chore - young people...and the not so young ones like lazy ol' me these days will resort to short cuts. Maybe that's why everything now is not as nice as in the good ol' days. LOL!!!

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    2. mui mui, as Arthur said, it is best to use freshly roasted peanuts. Lagi sedap! I am guilty of being lazy hee..hee..

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  5. WOW... I love salad too! The peanut salad dressing sounds to yummy! I want some :D

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  6. Hi Phong Hong, your peanut salad dressing looks delicious ... hmm ... it reminded me that I've not made Tahu Goreng .. peanut sauce for a long long time. Perhaps I should try out this 'fusion style' Tahu Goreng with this peanut salad dressing ^-^. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. Hi Karen! Please try this dressing. It is also very nice as a dip and I enjoyed it very much. It went very well with the hard boiled egg and tauhu goreng :)

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  7. at times when i'm lazy to toast the peanuts, i just get them from the kacang puteh man. i guess cheaper than the tong garden ones provided it's easy to find kacang putih stall at your place.great sharing of this yummilcious finger licking dressing, sounds creamy!

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    1. Hi Lena! There is a kacang putih man near my office. Next time I should buy from him hee..hee..

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  8. This must be real tasty! Yum yum yum!

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    1. Hi Jozelyn! Very yummy sampai menjilat jari!

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  9. interesting.. the other day we read suituapui doing this using the kacang tumbuk and today you are using the tong garden's peanut, hehe.. so blogging is a good way to get each other inspired huh?? nice and simple but the lazy me who don't even go into the kitchen once in a ten years would use the kacang tumbuk instead, muahahahaha..

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    1. Hi SK! Yes, very good resource for new recipes. No harm using the kacang tumbuk, me too very lazy to make my own hah...hah...

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  10. but i guess your recipe would be more flexible, because we can use some other nuts else besides peanuts huh?? hmmm, experiments experiments, would it be nice to have things like almond, walnut, pecan, hazelnut, macadamia, cashew etc etc done this way?? ah, interesting right?? but i think perhaps sesame would be nice huh?? i like that, you know the Japanese style sesame dressing, oh, love that but that is super expensive to get a bottle from the supermarket shelf, especially the imported ones.. so your next assignment or consideration: japanese style sesame dressing, hehehehe!!

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    1. I used the recipe exactly like Arthur's. I suppose can experiment with other nuts or even sesame seeds. SK, I have posted a Japanese style dressing. You must have forgotten :D

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    2. I've tried cashews. Nice also but they're so so so expensive. I'd rather stick to peanuts.

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    3. Oh, I must try that! I love cashews and I have one tub in the fridge :)

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  11. Looks really creamy and delicious, I bet taste so much better than the usual thousand island dressing huh!

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    1. Hi Jeannie! It is something new and refreshing. I like it very much!

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  12. Looks delicious, the photos say it all Very smooth and creamy!

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    1. It is really good, very nice peanut aroma. Will be better to have extras for sprinkling.

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  13. I have been eating so much of unhealthy food on this weekend so it's good to see some salad in your place.

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    1. Hi Jessie! Yes, salads are good for a light healthy meal. I enjoyed my salads last weekend :)

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  14. Hi Phong Hong,

    I wouldn't waste the salad dressing on the blender lid too... This is the time that the cook get the extra :D

    Zoe

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    1. Hi Zoe! Makes it easier to wash too hee,,,hee,,

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  15. I wouldnt have thought of using evaporated milk for salad dressing too... I always use pasteurised egg when I make carbonara and tiramisu too :)

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    1. Hi Yen! It's great that we have pasteurized eggs and can use it for tiramisu. Tiramisu without eggs is not as rich and not as yummy.

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  16. Hi Phong Hong,
    Interesting recipe! I have never used evaporated milk to make any kind of salad dressing. But my hubby do not take nuts and my daughter is not a fan of nuts! And I have this fear of using raw eggs, either pasteurised or not! I'm not that adventurous when it comes to raw eggs! :(

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    1. Hi Joyce! This is my first time using evaporated milk in a dressing. So far, I have not had a tummy ache hah...hah...which means that the raw egg was OK for me :)

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  17. Phong Hong, this unusual salad dressing which really reminds me of our famous Caesar dressing with the raw egg...which nowdays we have to boil for one minute to reduce the chance of getting salmonella. I am so glad that we do have the Heinz dressing on our grocery shelves, but most of us substitute it for Hellman's mayo which is the best in the U.S.
    I did try the Heinz, just it's very expensive; cost double than Hellmans, but worth keeping one at home!
    Thanks for sharing the yummy dressing and salad idea...love it!

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    1. Hi Elisabeth! Thank you for taking time from your busy schedule to come over!I don't think we have Hellmans here and even if we did, it would be expensive too boo..hoo...but I don't mind spending a little bit more for the good stuff once in a while :)

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