Oriental salad dressing – and Oriental coleslaw

• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 teaspoon “lazy” garlic puree
• 1 tablespoon “lazy” ginger puree
• 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

Combine all ingredients in a lidded jar and shake it all about until the honey is dissolved.  We like this so much we normally make double or triple quantities and leave the jar in the fridge as a ready-made salad dressing. It’s great on any kind of robust or peppery salad leaves. Originally it was for coleslaw, from a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe for Asian coleslaw – our take on it is below.

• Half a small head of red cabbage
• 2 large carrots, cleaned
• 6 radishes
• a bunch of spring onions
• half a lime
• bunch of coriander leaves

Chop the spring onions finely, and grate the cabbage, carrots and radishes on a coarse setting.  You may have more success in cutting the cabbage finely with a really sharp knife as it does need to be a bit crunchy.  Mix all the veg together in a bowl and squeeze over the juice of half a lime. Leave to relax for a bit then pour over the dressing above when you’re ready to serve, and garnish with a good handful of chopped coriander leaves. Or if you can’t stand coriander (there are some people who swear it tastes of soap…), just leave it out.

The salad dressing is vegetarian, and if you use maple or agave syrup instead of honey it is vegan.