Chef’s salads are never boring
Asian-inspired creations salty, sweet and sour
Salad doesn’t have to be a precursor to dinner. It doesn’t even have to be green.
Chef Antonio Park’s Asian salads are textured, nuanced masterpieces, layered with colour and flavour, ranging from sweet to salty to sour. Leafy greens share the bowl with julienned vegetables and fruit, hand-tossed with dressing and garnished with roasted nuts, sesame seeds and fresh herbs.
Salads, he says, are meant to be fun, especially at the height of summer when local produce is at its tender, crunchy or leafy freshest.
“Western salads are pretty predictable: A vinaigrette of olive oil and vinegar with leafy greens,” said Park, from behind the counter at his Montreal restaurant Park.
He’s known mostly for his sushi and sashimi, but the inventive Japanese- and Korean-inspired salads on his menu have inspired followers of their own. They feature grated and thinly sliced vegetables, leafy greens and fresh herbs, as well as fruit and nuts and sometimes grilled chicken or fish or lightly seared lamb tataki.
“Asian salads are built around layers and layers of flavour and a combination of textures and colours. The colours are crazy and the ingredients are lively. And they always have a sweet side.”
The dressing is key. He makes a large batch of basic dressing he keeps in the fridge for two or three weeks and then tweaks to create different dressings. His recipe is simple: A carrot and a sweet onion are puréed in a blender with extra virgin olive oil, rice vinegar and maple syrup until ultrasmooth. The result is a thick, velvety salad with bright flavour and a bold orange colour. It’s perfect, Park says, tossed with leafy greens and a handful of fresh fruit and toasted nuts such as pistachios, almonds or pecans.
He’ll create yet another dressing for an entirely different salad by measuring out one cup of basic dressing and puréeing that with a spoonful of white miso and a handful of fresh basil or mint. He turns out Asian slaw by using a julienne grater to finely shred carrot, daikon, green papaya, underripe mango (or any combination of the above), then tossing them with the herbed dressing and finishing with basil leaves and sesame seeds.
For an even “crazier” dressing with bolder notes, Park adds acidity and saltiness to his basic recipe in the form of Japanese plum paste, a bright purple purée made from salted pickled plums (available at Japa- nese and Korean grocers) and, for sweetness, maple syrup and the syrup from canned lychees. The salad he dresses with it is more main course than entree, assembled on a serving plate with thin slices of seared meat, grilled chicken or fish, or crispy tofu.
His favourite is lamb tataki, which he prepares by seasoning lamb tenderloin with salt and pepper or the Japanese seven-spice blend called togarashi, and then searing it in a very hot pan for 30 seconds on each side so that it is browned on the outside but very rare on the inside.
“You see?” he says, sprinkling a flourish of sesame seeds over the dish. “Salad doesn’t have to be boring.”