Alsatian field salad

(Elsässer Ackersalat)

A quick and easy salad for which I am not able to give exact amounts of ingredients. I always prepare it give or take a bit.

Preparation time: about 20 minutes
Suggested music: The subjonctiv song! (I ate this salad for the first time at a family celebration when I was 14. At the same time, I got my first CD player. And my first CD was Celine Dion. Now I am in France, and Alsace is also in France, so it has to be a french song. This one features many verbs in the dreaded verb form of the subjonctiv. Yeah!)

Ingredients:

• Field salad (for 1-2 persons)
• 1-2 pears (they don't have to be very soft, they will soften in the pan)
• soy sauce
• olive oil
• balsamic vinegar
• optional: some walnuts

What to do:

1. Wash the salad and put into a bowl.
2. Wash the pears and cut into quarters. Slice these into about 0.5 cm thick pieces.
3. Heat a bit of oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the pears and saute until they become slightly translucent.
4. Remove from heat and deglaze with a bit of soy sauce (don't use too much, it might become to salty). When it has stopped steaming, add some balsamic vinegar. (Do NEVER add the vinegar to the really hot pan! This will smell awfully like acetic acid and hurt in your nose!)
5. Pour over the salad, add the optional nuts, mix and serve immediately.

Chinese seitan salad

The veganized version of the one recipe that I make regularly from "joy of cooking". I got the book as a present and use it as a guestbook for vegans since then, and one day, oh yes, one day all those pictures and texts that tell you how to make something edible out of a whole bird or how to boost your cholesterol level with recipes containing 99 % eggs will have vanished under greetings and flyers and stickers! Serves 2-4.

I guess this would look prettier if it was not all mixed up in the big bowl, but this is my weekday dinner and I am hungry!

Preparation time: 20 minutes (if you have seitan and peeled peanuts)
Suggested music: Something assimilated... Nouvelle Vague - Bela Lugosi's Dead

Ingredients:

• 1 cup asian noodles (your favorite kind)
• 1 onion, chopped (the book says: 2/3 cup sliced scallions, but I can't eat raw onions :/ )
• 2 cups thin strips seitan
• 4 cups shredded Napa cabbage (Chinakohl)
• 1 cup peanuts 
• 1 can mandarin oranges (11 ounce)
• 1/2 cup canola oil (book uses peanut oil) + a bit of a more heat-stable oil for sauteing
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• chili oil or chili flakes
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce + a bit for deglazing
• 1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
• salt & pepper

What to do:

1. Heat water in a pot and prepare the noodles according to instructions on the package. Place in a big bowl when finished.
2. In a pan, heat a little bit of oil (for sauteing) and saute the onion and seitan. Deglaze with a bit of soy sauce. Add to the bowl when finished.
3. Place cabbage, peanuts, mandarin oranges (keep the juice!) in the big bowl.
4. Prepare the sauce: 2/3 cup of mandarin orange juice, oil, lemon juice, chili oil/flakes to taste, soy sauce, ginger, salt & pepper to taste. Mix and enjoy.