Salad Dressing For Andrew

3 Tablespoons Tahini-Hummus

1/4 Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

3 Tablespoons Soy Sauce

1/8 Cup of Rice Wine Vinegar

1/2 Teaspoon Sesame Oil

1 Teaspoon Sugar

Fresh Ground Pepper, Dash of Hot Sauce to taste

For you Andrew, my dear partner.

This was a concoction I had created before with varying degrees of success when dishes called for flavors with an Asian influence. It was perfected one late afternoon at a business meeting in my kitchen. Andrew, one of my business partners at the studio is a vegan. I admire him for it. It takes a strong sense of will to take a stand on principle, especially with the pressures of a society that asks him to give in, not to mention two maniac, carnivorous business partners. Anyway, on with the show!

You'll need two small bowls. In one bowl, mix the sugar, vinegar and soy sauce until the sugar is dissolved. Please use good soy sauce and good rice wine vinegar. With the proliferation of the Whole Foods' and Fairway's of the world, it shouldn't be too hard to find. Real brewed soy sauce is so far superior to the salt water with caramel color that some brands try to pass off as soy sauce. A note on hummus. People have different tastes as far as hummus goes but for this recipe, I like to use a hummus with a high tahini concentration. Most hummuses on the market have a little or a lot of tahini in them but for best results I tend to stick with the Sabra brand Hummus & Tahini.

In the second bowl, whisk a thin trickle of the olive oil into the hummus, slowly at first, making sure that the oil integrates into the hummus. Then, with the same process whisk in the sesame oil. Once incorporated, again with the same process, trickle in the contents of the other bowl, constantly whisking. Add the fresh ground pepper. Add hot sauce to taste. You are finished.

This will go great on just about any salad. I often serve it on a thinly sliced carrot and cucumber salad, but any leafy greens would be excellent. It's even good on, sorry Andrew, meats and fish. This goes very well with seared sea scallops, or a nice seared rare tuna, or even on some thinly sliced rare flank steak. As with any recipe, fool around with the numbers. Add a little more of this or a little less of that. As long as you use the technique of slowly whisking in the oils, then the water based ingredients you will have success! Enjoy!