Recently I had a couple of encounters, not the alien kind but the kind of encounters that you don’t expect after 30 plus years! We were meeting a friend up on Bloor at our local pub for dinner one night and this gentleman stops me on the street and calls me by name. He was so happy to see me but I had no idea who he was; it turns out that he was in my grade school way back before dinosaurs and he recognized me! I didn’t recognize him because he was a very skinny and short kid with a crazy ‘fro and he became quite a tall and portly adult with close cropped hair.
Later that same week we ventured to our local Home Show to walk around and day-dream about our next renovation when this woman approaches and asks if I had gone to U of T (University of Toronto) and as soon as I looked at her I recognized her from way back in the mid 80’s! Two totally unexpected encounters in one week. Has this ever happened to you? I’d love to hear about it.
I was trying to find a way to use the wasabi pearls without being too predictable and this salad was the perfect solution! The lightly dressed salad plays up the subtle sweet and sour Asian flavours in the cucumber pickle combined with the luxuriously creamy soft poached egg yolk. The cucumber pickle was so tasty, I would have it on its own too!
I’m still at odds about the use of the other two pearls, so if you have any ideas, I’d love to hear about them.
Cucumber Ribbon Pickle and Poached Egg Salad with Wasabi Pearls
Serves 2 as a light meal or 4 as a starter
Ingredients for the salad:
- 4 handfuls of mixed greens (I used spinach and arugula)
- 20 grape tomatoes cut in half
- 1 tbsp cilantro, roughly chopped
- 1 tbsp green onion, roughly chopped
- 1 heaped tbsp wasabi pearls (click here for recipe)
- 1 cup English cucumbers, sliced into very thin ribbons (see note)
- 1 soft boiled egg per serving
Ingredients for the dressing:
- 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
- 1/4 cup water
- 1 tsp toasted sesame oil
- 1/2 tsp soy sauce
Directions for the cucumber pickle:
- Combine all of the ingredients for the dressing and heat either in the microwave or stove top until just about boiling. Pour over the cucumber ribbons in a non-reactive container and allow to sit for 15 to 30 minutes.
Directions for the salad:
- Put equal amounts of the mixed greens into each of two or four bowls, top with equal amounts of the cucumber pickle (reserve the dressing) and tomatoes.
- Add one poached egg per bowl and garnish with the chopped green onion and cilantro.
- Distribute even amounts of the wasabi pearls into each bowl and drizzle with a tablespoon or two of the dressing into each bowl.
- Serve immediately.
Tips:
- Use your vegetable peeler to make paper thin cucumber ribbons.
- Don’t peel the cucumber to give it some substance.
Lovely salad Eva – anything with poached egg gets my vote, although I haven’t had a poached egg in… years? They’re just so damn annoying to make so I usually settle for a loosely boiled egg and then peel that and bung it in the salad. Not quite the same effect but easier I find.
I was thinking – since you didn’t quite get the colour you wanted from the wasabi, can you buy mustard powder there.., like Colmans for example? I’m guessing that would yield a brilliant yellowy orange and would be a good flavour too!
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Thank you very much Charles, we figured out a method to poach our eggs and it never fails – crack and egg into a small glass bowl, dip the bowl into the softly boiling water, allowing the softly boiling water slowly into the glass bowl and then spill the egg out in a quick turn and roll the egg over itself. It will look like a mess, but it really does make a tidy bundle. You could also bring some water to a soft boil and then line a smallish glass bowl with plastic wrap, crack your egg into it and bring up the corners of the plastic wrap to seal it into a little ball. Submerge this little ball into the softly boiling water for 2-3 minutes for a soft boiled egg.
The mustard sounds like another great flavour for these little pearls and quite versatile too. Thanks for the suggestion.
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That poached egg has me drooling. That looks so good! I love that you wanted to make something not too predictable. If there’s one thing I could never imagine you being is predictable! You are far too clever and creative. 🙂
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Thank you so much Kristy, I’m so flattered by your lovely words. I’m glad that egg had a positive effect on you, it was very tasty.
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Your salad with all its Asian tastes sounds like a nice lunch dish…and yes, we need the color. 🙂
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Thank you kindly Karen, that’s very nice of you to say.
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I love the wasabi pearls in this salad. Perfect!
I went to a ladies’ luncheon not too long ago and this total stranger came up and said, “Maureen?” I said yes and she said, “I have been reading your blog for ages and never knew you lived here.”
Being so far from the states, it’s unlikely I’ll run into anyone from my old hometown in Maine. 🙂
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How lovely that someone recognized you Maureen, I do hope it doesn’t get too out of hand though! Funny that you should say that about it being unlikely to run into anyone you know for the states because when I was 12 we were vacationing in Budapest and went up to János Hedgy (St. John Mountain) one evening when my Dad heard someone speaking in English so he looked and discovered they were the adult children of a very close friend in Toronto also vacationing in Budapest. Small world.
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Yes, I had the exact same experience yesterday. I was walking Alfie down the street and a man stopped me and said, ‘Charlie! I was just talking about you a week ago because I had lunch with Mark’. I had no idea who he was and couldn’t think of who Mark was and thought he must have been referring to Carl. Then he said, ‘I should look you up; are you on Linked In? Because my daughter is thinking of doing nursing so I’d love to hear your thoughts’. No clue. He told me his name and I just pretended I knew who he was. After some chit-chat he said, ‘I’m now working at Gadens’. That’s a law firm. It all came together. He was a lawyer working in a firm I worked at when I looked after a quadriplegic solicitor called Mark. Unbelievable! The trouble with men is that they often lose their hair and this guy from 22 years ago had thick dark hair and was in his mid-20’s and now he’s mid-50’s and nearly bald! xx
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Now that is really an interesting story Charlie, thanks for sharing it. Yes, the hair thing is a bit troubling for sure, and it seems that men are losing their hair much younger than ever.
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What a perfect recipe for the cucumber pearls! 😀 And that hasn’t happened to me but that would make me pause for thought certainly!
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Thank you kindly Lorraine. It happened to me about 20 years ago as well, we were waiting for our table at the bar at a Thai Restaurant in Toronto when the bar tender asked me if I was Eva with my maiden name. Apparently we had been in grade 5 together!
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Oooh, how delicious… I love the sound of this salad, Eva. How lovely too that you were recognised after all those years.
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Hi Liz, it does make one feel good. Thank you for your comment.
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Wow! This is beautiful and very sophisticated.
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Thank you so much Cheri.
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Wow – what an amazing salad – looks so textural and flavoursome. Those wasabi pearls would be so enjoyable to pop in my mouth! 🙂
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Thank you for your comment Padaek and welcome to my blog. The pickled cucumber was a very refreshing addition to the salad, your recent post of pickled onions would have also been quite delightful in this dish.
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Since I didn’t grow up here, the only folks I run into from the dark ages occasionally are those met as an adult…and that doesn’t happen very frequently anymore since the city is almost 6 million and so spread out. Love your salad and I’ll bet the pearls add just the right kick. I could see using balsamic pearls on top of a risotto, perhaps stacked like caviar, or possibly mixed into a strawberry or mixed berry salad, or perhaps combined with sweet potatoes hot or cold.
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Hi Betsy, your suggestions for other uses of the pearls are excellent, thank you. It’s funny you should say that it’s rather unlikely to run into someone but that’s exactly what happened when I was 12 years old and vacationing in Budapest, my parents ran into a dear friend’s adult children from Toronto who were coincidentally vacationing in Budapest too!
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Oh, I’ve run into plenty of folks in strange places…we ran into friends at the Whitney Museum in NYC one time…that was pretty wild! And we run into folks around town that we haven’t seen in a while, just not childhood friends so much, since those who do live here live pretty far on the other side of town. (Atlanta is VERY spread out.) We just don’t have it happen as often anymore…maybe because our traveling has been curtailed over the last few years.
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That is totally wild. We ran into Toronto friends while vacationing in Whistler and in Paris too! Small world.
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Indeed it is! 🙂
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I think this is perfect, Eva, the egg would add a real creaminess to each bite of the wasabi pearls. The ribbons are a pretty contrast to the round pearls as well. I need to go back and read how you make those, they’re quite unique and lovely in a salad. Running into people, that hasn’t happened in a very long time. I’m always surprised when someone recognizes me, I would never have picked them out of the crowd. I guess my memory’s not as good. Actually, this has happened, but usually students I taught (Kindergarten) so I’m really shocked because of course they’re “big” now, lol! xx
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Hi Barbara, that would be rather interesting to see the grown children after so many years. Thank you for the lovely comment.
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The salad looks so elegant with those wasabi pearls and I love the poached egg on top. Reminds me that I haven’t had eggs that way in ages.
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That’s what I love about blogging Maria, in its simplest form, it sparks an idea and you’re off and running.
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What a classy and delicious salad, so refreshing! I loved the ribboned pickle it looks so pretty 😀
And omg the pearls!!! Beyond cool!
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
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Thanks so much CCU, I appreciate your kind words.
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Beautiful refreshing salad, Eva! Of course the pearls are a sophisticated touch which must make it amazingly good. (I also love poached/fried eggs with a runny yolk). Cucumber is my number one vegetable. I cannot live without it and I’m glad to see the taste doesn’t change much even in winter (in spite of what some strictly seasonal cooks might say), so I use it all the time. It’s also such a wonderful “filler”: no fat, no calories…
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Hi Sissi, I do love cucumber too but my goto virtually calorie free vegetable is the humble celery. The crunch is extremely satisfying.
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Celery is my recent discovery (it’s not popular in every European country… I must have tasted it first time at the age of 20 or later…) and I love it too, but find it less versatile in salads for example (it does have an anise seed aroma which not always suits the rest of ingredients and the crunch is sometimes too harsh). Cucumber can practically be thrown into everything.
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I had read that on your blog some time ago, it’s quite a standard vegetable here, in fact I just ate a bunch for lunch, it’s the crunch that I find so satisfying.
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Eva that is just divine xx
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Thank you kindly Shiva.
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