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Japanese Salad Dressing - Please help me stop my cravings! :)

1K views 5 replies 5 participants last post by  heatherruk 
#1 ·
Hello there! hopefully someone can help me out here with my daily misery :) I am four months pregnant and there is this salad dressing used at our local Japanese steak house that I crave on a DAILY basis. The sushi chef there will not share his recipe to save my life even with a bribe of $100 HAHA Anyway, this dressing is a part oil part liquid dressing. It is very sour and citrus-ey and not sweet at all. It is a light golden/tan color and has a citrus fruit pulp floating around in it. You know that sour punch that hits your tongue when you taste yellow mustard, you get that kick with this dressing too.

I have tried and failed many times at re-creating this dressing at home. I tried Miso paste, fail. I tried Ponzu sauce, fail. Hopefully someone on this forum can help me out. Thank you SSSOOO much for reading :)
 
#2 ·
I'm sorry I can't help but what a jerk that chef is.  It really bugs me when people won't share their recipes.  What's the point of him doing that, is he afraid that if he gives you the ingredients for the recipe that you will stop going to his restaurant?  

On the other hand I suppose you can buy salad dressing from the restaurant to take home with you, it should last for a bit and then you buy some every week.  They can't refuse that can they?  

Still, it's jerky.
 
#4 ·
I bet it's got a mayonnaise base, and not Hellman's/BestFoods mayo either. Probably Kewpie mayonnaise. I see this a lot in Asian restaurants in the US. 

As to citrus, Lemon or Grapefruit would be my first guess. Orange is used a lot but is usually sweeter than what you've described. Take a good look at the menu and see where citrus is called out in the descriptions. I suspect they use the same citrus in multiple applications as it makes little sense to source citrus just for the dressing. They might source solely for the dressing but it doesn't strike me as best restaurant practice. 

Is the sour all citrus (citric acid) or is it more acetic, the acid in vinegars. They do taste different. The wildcard is that they might be using a citrus rice vinegar as well. I've liked those when I can find them in the asian grocers, but they're not that common. 

Tan, well, does it taste asian? Think soy or sesame oil flavors. Those would both give some tanness, I lean toward sesame oil as a  hunch than soy. 
 
#6 ·
wow you guys are great. Thank you so much for the replies!!! Koukouvagia, your reply made me laugh. It is jerky right!! Thanks again everyone. I will definitely be trying the Yuzu, and sesame oil.

Phatch, I will also take a look at the menu next time to see if they have any other citrus tied into other items. The taste is more of a citric acid taste like vinegar more then a citrus sour. I will take a look for citrus rice vinegar. Thanks so much!
 
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