Celebrating our granddaughter's 16th birthday, we just came home from treating her at our area's best Japanese sushi restaurant. Everything we ordered was great, from the edamame and miso soup appetizers to the mango ice cream dessert.
I ordered a small dinner salad, and it was served very cold with the absolute best salad dressing I've ever tasted. I want to try and duplicate that dressing at home!
Our waiter would only say that it was the "house dressing", of course. I'll do my best to describe it, and maybe you good cooks here will know if it's actually a known feature of Japanese cuisine, or if not maybe you'll just help me figure it out.
The dressing was similar to Caesar dressing, but thinner (runnier). The color was white with no specks of other colors that I could see. I'm pretty sure the dressing is sour cream based, watered down. There's a slight vinegar tang, a slight hint of fish (which seems different from Caesar's anchovies), a bit of sugar sweetness, and maybe a little salt.
The flavor seemed familiar to me, and it got me thinking about how the kitchen of this restaurant turns out sushi rice by the barrel full, every day.
When I make sushi rice at home, I follow instructions and heat to dissolve and then mix into the cooked rice a combination of rice vinegar, dashi (dried bonito flakes), sugar, and salt. I THINK the cook at this restaurant simply mixes the same combination (or something very close to it) into sour cream, adds a little water, and gets it refrigerator-cold to make this wonderful "house dressing".
Do you know of a salad dressing like that? What do you think?
Salad Dressing from Sushi Restaurant
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