Carrot-Ginger Dressing

This is the dressing you see at Japanese steakhouses or sushi restaurants. If you’ve ever wanted to drown yourself in a tub of this stuff, now’s your chance. 

I've loved this dressing since my first visit to a sushi restaurant in 2000. It reminds me of when going to a sushi restaurant was a "fun night out," in a place (Mississippi) where sushi restaurants were a destination, not a convenience. Ah, the good old days. 

Carrot-Ginger Dressing
via Epicurious.com

3 medium carrots, peeled & coarsely chopped
1/4 cup fresh ginger, peeled & coarsely chopped
1/4 shallots, chopped
1/4 cup of rice vinegar
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1/8 teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used half olive oil, half grapeseed oil)
1/4 cup water
*optional: pinch of sugar

Start by peeling fresh ginger - this cannot be substituted with anything else. It has to be fresh. I’m using a spoon to scrape off the papery skin. This is much easier than a vegetable peeler or a knife.

I’m then going to coarsely chop it, in no particular fashion. It’s going to go into a food processor, so I’m just chopping it enough to ensure it processes evenly.

Then we need to peel three medium carrots. Depending on your food processor, you may also need to coarsely chop these. My food processor has a slicing blade, so I’ll just run the whole carrot through that rather than chop by hand.

And we need to chop shallots. Just like the carrots and the ginger, it doesn’t matter how.

Blend together the carrots, ginger, shallot, rice vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, & salt. Then add the vegetable oil. Slowly add the water to thin the dressing.

One thing you may notice is the bitterness of the vinegar sits in your mouth after a few bites. A few pinches of sugar will take that off. For this entire recipe, I used 4 pinches of sugar to smooth out the vinegar.