Today Rob Eats a "Sauteed Soy/Ginger Salad"

Raikus — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:56:00 GMT

Today I ate a "Sauteed Soy/Ginger Salad."

It's Friday, and that means it's leftover day. All of the salad ingredients of the week have to be used up or risk going bad over the weekend. I had the chicken breast strips, mushrooms and onions from yesterday so I decided to put them in a pan and saute them over medium heat until they cooked down. I started with the mushrooms and onions and through in a little homemade soy/ginger dressing that my wife made last week. She used fresh grated ginger and it's delicious. The mixture cooked down and I added the chicken just to get it seasoned in the sauce and warm. Meanwhile I washed and cut a head of Romaine onto my plate. Once the saute was finished I spread it evenly on the lettuce leaves and quickly put a Jack/Cheddar shredded cheese mix so it could melt on the hot mushroom, onions and chicken. I then took a spoon and drizzled the soy/ginger dressing on top until it had a nice coating.

Viola!

The estimated cost? Around $4.00

I used lesser amounts of the onions, mushrooms and chicken then in yesterday's salad but all of those base costs are about the same. The real value here comes from the homemade dressing. We were able to buy a large ginger room for $1.50 and make a lot (and I mean a lot) of ginger dishes, including the dressing for this. The cheese was also cheaper than the Mozzarella used in Thursday's salad. If I took it upon myself to buy the materials and make them myself (chop the onion and cook the chicken breasts) instead of buying premade the salad would probably cost around $2.75-$3.00.

But how does it taste? It's a decent salad. You take a risk when adding hot elements to a bed of fresh, crisp lettuce, but this wasn't hot enough to wilt the lettuce. The sauteed elements were sweet and savory while the dressing added a salty flavor with a kick of ginger. I did make a mistake in adding to much dressing to the salad. When I reached the bottom there was a pool of sauce. If I were more careful it would have been a nice coating. As it was it was a bit soggy at the bottom and you had to be careful how you ate the lettuce so as not to fling globules of dressing everywhere. Still, if you like things salty you'll enjoy this salad. I think it will work much better with steak instead of chicken and throwing in some green olives may be just the punch this salad needs to take it to the next level.

Final verdict? I'd rather eat it than tortilla chips and spicy salsa - 3/5

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Rob's Salad Scale:

I'd rather eat it than a ginormous bowl of cottage cheese - 1 out of 5
I'd rather eat it than a frozen TV dinner with a green beans side - 2 out of 5
I'd rather eat it than tortilla chips and spicy salsa - 3 out of 5
I'd rather eat it than a McDonald's Big Mac with Supersized Fries and a Coke - 4 out of 5
I'd rather eat it than a steaming big bowl of Chicken Andouille Jambalaya - 5 out of 5

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Today Rob Eats a "Sauteed Soy/Ginger Salad"