japanese chopped salad

Something like this was to us served at the Yamashiro Japanese Restaurant many years ago. I remember that it was a very interesting assemblage of ingredients, which I tried to remember and jot down, insofar as I could distinguish them, on a little piece of note paper.

The Yamashiro resides on a hill overlooking the Magic Castle Restaurant and the old Grauman’s Chinese Theater, which is at the corner of Highland and Hollywood Boulevard. When I checked their current menu, I found the salad had disappeared, so you can’t validate the recipe if you go there.

A friend once told me, long before I had ever gone there, that they had a list of sakes, much like other restaurants have extensive wine cellars. As and enthusiast, she said that she had attempted to taste them all in the space of an evening, but either got “socked on sake,” or “swacked on swake,” she couldn’t remember which.

Anyway, the salad, to the best of my recollection was something like

• 1 cup Napa cabbage, chopped
• 1 cup radicchio, chopped
• 15 snow peas, deveined and cut up
• ¼ cup mango, in ½” cubes
• ¼ cup carrots, in ½: cubes
• 2 oz sesame vinaigrette †
• 1 tsp wasabi
• 2 oz won tons, slivered and fried

Assemble the cabbage, radicchio, peas, mango, and carrots in a salad bowl. Toss to mix the ingredients together. Add the wasabi to the vinaigrette, drizzle it over the salad, and toss to wet the salad components. Serve in bowls with the fried won tons as garnish.