Spicy Salad with Balsamic Pearls

170412 Spicy Salad with Pearl Dressing-5240

This is a way to jazz up the serving of a tasty, but ordinary looking, salad.
The ingredients aside, you will need a pipette and a slotted spoon (or a fine strainer) for this recipe. Looks really professional and is so easy to make!

Ingredients:
3 medium sized tomatoes, quartered, seeds removed and chopped
½ cucumber, seeds and skin removed, chopped
¼ chopped leek
1 yellow pepper, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1 red chili, seeds removed, chopped
50 ml dry toasted sunflower seeds, salted
1/2 lemon, zest

Dressing:
30 ml olive oil
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
Juice from 1/2 lemon
1/2 tablespoon honey
Salt and pepper

1. In a bowl, combine the salad ingredients.
2. Whisk together the dressing and pour on top.
3. Refrigerate.

Pearls:
90 ml balsamic vinegar
1 tsp of honey
1 tsp of lemon juice
½ tsp agar agar

Vegetable oil as below for the freezer

1. In a freezer, for minimum of 30 minutes, chill enough oil to measure 15 cm tall in a glass.
2. In a small pan, bring the mix for the pearls to a boil and then take it off the heat.
3. Let sit for 5 minutes.
4. Using a pipette, drop the dressing mix into the glass containing the cold oil. Let sit for 2-3 minutes.
5. Remove the pearls from the oil using a slotted spoon or pour the oil with the pearls through a fine strainer.

Serve the pearls with the spicy salad.

This technique can be used with many other sauces apart from balsamic dressing. Just play with it and be sure to (in the comments below) let me know what you did and how it turned out!

170412 Spicy Salad with Pearl Dressing-5244