Spicy Coleslaw

Wotchers!

Such a great recipe for you today and I’m going to take the opportunity to talk about something that affects a lot of recipes online – weights and measures.

But first, a little backstory.

This is an original recipe, but the inspiration came from elsewhere. My current favourite TV program is a Korean entertainment show called “Chef and My Fridge” (Netflix UK & elsewhere). The premise is: eight well-known chefs compete to win one-on-one 15-minute cooks using ingredients from the fridge of a celebrity. There are two celebrities per week, and two cook-offs per celebrity. The celebrity specifies a theme for each cook-off and bring their fridge contents for the chefs to use. At first I thought the set dressers worked from a list of contents but no, they send a moving company to the celebrity’s home and bring the entire contents of the fridge/freezer AND THE APPLIANCE ITSELF. After each cook-off, the celebrity tastes the dishes and declares a winner, who gets a gold star – and bragging rights, of course. And for me, that’s where the charm of this program lies. The banter between the chefs/hosts/guests. Many of the chefs have come to recent prominence through an earlier Korean cooking show: Culinary Class Wars, which I also recommend if your watching schedule is sparse (both available on NetflixUK, and possibly further afield). They aren’t a fixed group, chefs rotate in and out, from different culinary backgrounds and even overseas (French, Italian, American). I’d love to see a UK version of this, maybe hosted by Mel & Sue, but quite honestly, I can’t think of 8 British chefs whose egos would allow them to be so warm and relaxed in such a situation. 

ANYHOO…

I was watching an episode last week where chef Kwon Seong-Joon was creating a dish, which included coleslaw. He included peanut butter in the dressing, which immediately piqued my interest. Then later, when the celebrity guest tasted it, his face lit up in wonder and delight and he exclaimed “What did I just eat!?” – so of course I had to rewind and see what exactly he put in there.

And here’s my only complaint (although that’s too strong a word) about this show – the screen is very busy. There are English subtitles, of course, but there’s also quite a bit of Korean text, and the English subtitles don’t always appear in the same place on the screen: they jump around quite a bit.

ANYHOO…

I jotted down the ingredients: cabbage, carrot, red pepper, apple, mayo, yogurt, wasabi, anchovy cream, horseradish – and started trying to recreate it. I had to employ some tactics from the That’ll Do™ School of cooking, on account of not having some ingredients, but after a few tries got a dressing that I was happy with. The result has all the creamy crunchiness you’d expect from a coleslaw, but the peanut butter, chillies and lime lend a spiciness that is bright and fresh and perfect as an accompaniment to grilled barbecue foods.

Now – onto the weights and measures I mentioned earlier.

When I started this blog, I decided I would  make the weights and measures metric. I was barely in school when the UK officially switched to metric, and now here we are, over 50 years later, and it is still not embraced wholeheartedly.

With the coming of the internet, a whole slew of recipe opportunities opened up with websites from American authors, who still use cups/spoons/pints/quarts. And I understand why, in pioneer times, it was easier to use these quantities rather than a scale and weights. But the problem lies in the inexactitude: a cup of sifted flour weighs different to a cup of unsifted, whereas 120g is always 120g. If you don’t use many American recipes, then it’s not a problem, because there are hundreds of lookup tables on the internet where conversions can be quickly and easily made. If you’re keen, you can buy a set of cups/spoons and then conversion isn’t required for when precision is less important: great for That’ll Do™ cooking such as a cup of rice/pasta or, in this case, cabbage and carrot.

I also thought I’d run over a few guidelines for achieving the perfect coleslaw mix. Some are related to texture, some are related to preparation method. They are offered as suggestions, based on my own personal preferences and years of practice.

• The most important aspect of a good coleslaw is texture. Whatever mix of fruits and vegetables you choose to fling together, the most important characteristic is texture – they should all be of a similar texture. Which is why great coleslaw usually (but not always) contains carrot, and doesn’t contain tomatoes.
• Cabbage: traditionally white cabbage, which is a bit of a misnomer right off the bat, because a lot of what I see in the shops at this time of year is pale yellow. Just a reminder that you can make coleslaw with almost any vegetable of the cabbage family – green, Savoy, red, kale, spring greens, sweetheart cabbage, Chinese cabbage, even Brussels sprouts. The closer the leaves, the firmer the crunch, so for a light summer slaw why not try Napa cabbage or pak choi?
• Raw cabbage has a fresh and earthy flavour that benefits from the addition of some sweetness. Raw carrot is sweet and is a great pairing with cabbage, but speaking from experience, surprisingly it IS possible to add too much. Many moons ago my one and only batch of too-much-carrot coleslaw was unnervingly sweet and was used as a learning example that I have refrained from to this day. You can also add alternatives such as crisp apple and fennel, or peppery radish, either the red-skinned British variety or the larger Asian daikon.
• Alliums – some kind of raw onion is a popular addition. I would venture to suggest that regular, raw, yellow onion has too strong a flavour to add – unless you’re only adding extremely small quantities – but then you’re left with the awkward half or three-quarters of an onion hanging about and potentially going to waste. I’m not a fan, but if you are, much better to go with the smaller/milder end of the spectrum. Finely chopped shallot, spring onion or chives can bring the savouriness without the death breath.
• Garlic: No.
• Size: A pet peeve of mine is coleslaw that is TOO BIG – long, spidery shreds that either fall off my fork or out of my sandwich and as sod’s law dictates, inevitably down my front, especially if I’m eating in public. So here’s my strong recommendation: have all your ingredients cut to roughly the same size. I suggest 1.5-2cm. This might seem a bit of a Faff™, but you will be rewarded with incredible coleslaw and a delightful eating experience, whether in public or private.

Spicy Coleslaw

There is a lot of wiggle-room in this recipe to tailor it to your own tastes. Add/reduce the quantities of cabbage and carrot to your liking. I used green Tabasco sauce and mustard powder to add heat, but you could choose sauces that you prefer, or even go with the original wasabi and horseradish to taste. Similarly, the anchovy sauce substitutes for the original anchovy cream, but if you wish to make this vegetarian, you could use miso paste and/or capers and/or mushroom powder – something salty and umami. The photo at the top shows a batch made with additional green chillies (seeded, quartered and finely sliced), but I actually prefer it without: the heat from the seasonings is more subtle and together with the peanut flavour gives whisper of spicy satay, which goes so well with barbecued or grilled foods.

1 cup (240ml)  fat-free yogurt – drained
½ cup (120ml) ‘light’ mayonnaise – I like Hellmann’s
rounded ¼ cup (75g) smooth peanut butter
1 tbs green tabasco sauce
1tsp yellow mustard powder
1tsp anchovy sauce (or salty vegetarian/vegan alternative)
Juice of 1 lime

3 cups finely sliced white cabbage
1 cup finely sliced carrot
1 red pepper, finely sliced

onion/shallot/spring onions/chives – optional
2 fresh green chillies – optional
wasabi – optional
horseradish – optional
capers – optional
miso paste – optional

• Prepare the dressing first and then set aside to allow the flavours to mingle.
• Line a bowl with several layers of kitchen roll and pour in the yogurt. Set aside and allow to drain until firmed up. This can be a few hours to overnight, depending on how liquid your yogurt is. Ideally, it should be between the peanut butter and the mayonnaise in texture. This draining will help keep your coleslaw from becoming watery.
• Mix the drained yogurt with the remaining dressing ingredients. If your peanut butter is rather firm, zap it in the microwave for a few seconds in order to soften it, as it will then be easier to mix in.
• Taste your dressing and add any additional seasonings to your taste.
• Cover and set the dressing aside so that the flavours can mingle. This can be overnight if more convenient.
• Prepare the vegetables. Slice the vegetables thinly and then cut into small, 1-2cm pieces. Slicing by hand is a bit of a Faff, but it will ultimately mean less vegetable juice running out, which will then go on to make your coleslaw watery.
• Mix the dressing with your vegetables to your liking. I prefer a minimal amount – enough to bind – so that the different vegetables are still visible. Alternatively, you might like a really creamy coleslaw, in which case, throw it all in at once.
• Taste your coleslaw and adjust the seasoning to your tastes with any/all of the optional extras.
• Store your coleslaw in the fridge in a sealed container.