Piece of Plenty - Brown Rice Salad

I got this recipe whilst working as a cook at Piece of Plenty, a small artisan food business selling at Barnes Farmers' market and Alexandra Farmers' Market. This is one of the most popular salads on the stall and its easy to see why, its delicious! The dressing is what really makes it, thick soy sauce and olive oil coat the rice in a syrupy dressing, with lemon juice and ginger to lift it. Plus, what with the brown rice, veggies, cashew nuts, ginger and lemon juice, this is positively virtuous eating, I often took a box of this home whilst I was working there...

I am a bit of a garlic fiend, but I made a version of this with 1 clove of chopped garlic and 1 chopped red chilli, which I think were welcome additions, especially the extra heat of the chilli.

Serves 2-3
For the salad

• 2 cups of brown rice cooked until soft
• 4 or 5 peppers, diced finely
• 1 small bunch spring onions, sliced finely
• 100g cashews nuts, toasted

For the dressing

• 100ml extra virgin olive oil
• juice 1 lemon (approx 50ml)
• 50ml dark soy sauce
• 1tsp grated ginger

Place all the dressing ingredients in a clean jam jar and mix well. You can make up large quantities of this and it will keep happily for a few weeks Mix together the salad ingredients, pour over enough dressing to coat and enjoy!

Note: when cooking drown rice, I like to use twice as much water as rice, bring it to the boil, cover and leave to simmer until the water is absorbed and the rice is soft, top up if necessary. I find brown rice does actually take at least 30mins to cook, being the impatient cook that I am, I often undercook it, which is fine, you get a nuttier grain, but its a bit heavy on the old digestion...

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