salad with passion fruit dressing

this was ad hoc. i couldn't put the leaves back in the fridge, err.. actually i didn't want to coz i didn't have dinner. so i had baby spinach and Red Coral lettuce. i had 3 passion fruit at hand, but i needed protein somehow. Well, i have ham? Hmm, but i didn't want repeats since it's going to be for tomorrow's menu. Checked the fridge and i found my bag of bonito flakes and some leftover walnuts!


so my ad hoc salad consist of these:

1) walnuts
2) red coral lettuce
3) baby spinach
4) bonito flakes


the dressing is made of these:

1) passion fruit
2) 1 teaspoon of honey
3) QP Chuka dressing which consists of sesame seed oil, vinegar and some other stuff and something spicy


incidentally, though i like passion fruit quite a bit, i have never exactly eat it from the actual fruit itself. so this was the first time. Guess what? i had problem cutting it open. Apparently, though the outer layer of skin is quite tough, the inner layer is a bed of cushion for the flesh and seeds! so interesting! i have seen how the innards look like, but today is the first time i see the whole fruit in its entirety! so cool!

this is how a passion fruit looks like.. before it's being cut

after it's being cut

after it's being emptied

i tasted the juice which dripped, it's pretty sour so i knew i needed some sweetness to it if i am going to make it into a sauce. i had honey, one teaspoon is really sufficient (well, for me at least coz my level of sourish tolerance is quite high). thereafter, i added the Japanese salad dressing to give it more oomph. mix them nicely together and then drizzled on top of the salad. i gave the leaves and walnuts with the dressing a toss and finally added the bonito flakes.

the salad leaves

prepping the dressing

close to completion

here's the bonito salad with passion fruit dressing!

my conclusion? Surprisingly, the whole salad is very refreshing and quite yummy. The savoury bonito flakes with its little bit of burnt smell, mixed together with the crunchy red coral leaves and the more intense taste of the baby spinach gave the whole salad a lot of texture. with that little bit of sourish and slightly wettish dressing gives the salad quite a punch. best of all, the seeds of the passion fruit gives that crispy bite in every mouthful.


hmm.. one thing though, it feels like i am eating yummy paper.. err you know what i mean right?? Bonito flakes have that papery feel to it! hee hee.