Embrace the ingredients that keep people in hot countries cool and hydrated ! Tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, cilantro, lime & olive oil. This recipe has all you want: freshness, crunch, creaminess, and healthy energy !

An original salad

Are you tired of making the same salad all the time? I am… of course my family loves the Rainbow Crunch Shrimp and Rice Noodles Salad, and a good greek salad ( upcoming!), but we like a change once in a while!

Salad with typically American Ingredients

I like having visitors because they inspire me to add one or two ingredients I am not used to using!

Corn

A classic ingredient in the US is corn, of course. However, Europeans don’t use fresh corn much, we just buy cans. I prefer buying fresh in the summer and steaming the whole cobb, it does not take long and is very tender.

Another ingredients European don’t grow up using is tomatillo, and jalapeno of course!

A few comments before giving the recipe. It’s short I promise!

Tomatillo and Jalapeno

For the Europeans among you, especially those who don’t live on this side of the Atlantic, a few words on tomatillos! Tomatillo aren’t tomatoes, but they look like it. They look like giant, round and green physalis ( they actually are a type of physalis with latin name Physalis Philadelphica) don’t at all taste sweet. Without the husk they look like unripe tomatoes. What is famously cooked with tomatillos? Salsa verde ! The fruit comes from Mexico. Often it is used in combination with a chili pepper called Jalapeno. it may not be too local to Europeans but some grocery stores may carry them.
Tomatillos are a type of physalis that look like unripe tomatoes

Corn. GMOs or no GMO, that’s the question !

Depending on where you are and where you shop, you may not have access to non-GMO corn. GMO stands for “Genetically modified organisms”.  Their genetic identity has been changed, and I don’t know what it means for my body. T

hey say “you are what you eat”, right? I am not sure, so I keep away from it. I do the same about other GM I am aware of, such as non-organic soy, and some type of non-organic potatoes or apples.

GMO and pesticides

GMO seeds are bred to resist aggressive types of pesticides that kill all weeds and pests around them. And these plants are not sprayed with pesticides only once. On first instinct, that’s probably not good either.

Pesticides kill pests and bacteria, right? That means they likely (if not surely) kill bacteria in our digestive system.  You say they have an antibiotic-like effect. This is damageable to our gut because our immune system is made of a delicate balance of beneficial and less beneficial bacteria, the good fending us against the bad, or taking care of the uptake of nutrients. So as much as I can, I avoid pesticides.

Does the Steam Cooker Cleanse Non Organic Produce?

Yes! Gentle Steam cooking does cleanse your food

If you can’t get it all organic for financial reason – food is really expensive these days– or because that’s really all there is in your food desert, one good option is to use a great steam cooker, the Vitaliseur ! After rinsing your produce thoroughly in a bowl of water with baking soda ( which removes a good quantity of some pesticides according to Consumer Reports ).

Give your produce a steam Room session!

This is the true reason why I LOVE a good steam cooker: It gives a good STEAM BATH to my food. If you ever went to a steam room, you know you’ll sweat. And in the sweat you’ll find fats, and fats are the major location of toxins! So, MAKE YOUR FOOD SWEAT the toxins!

That’s what I do with my corn cob, and even if I find it organically grown: I steam the cobb. This method of cooking is fast ( 10 minutes in the steam cooker after I peel the corn), and the corn gets out very tender.

The Vitaliseur, a French Steam Cooker, Will Cook Virtually Anything

Whatever you want to cook except perhaps pasta, which needs to boil, you can steam in the VITALISEUR.

Revitalizes

If you want to translate this wonderful cooking tool’s name, you would call it “Vitalizer’: That is because it revitalizes, i.e. restore life to food by rehydrating them with gentle steam as it cooks them. In the case of produce, it truly feels and looks better after cooking, as in more alive again!.

However note that if your produce is old, it will need to cook longer to get a good result.

A Truly Quick and Efficient Cooking Tool

The best is, it is really efficient and is done in no time. Why? Contrary to water, gentle steam penetrates into the food, which cooks them faster. PRESSURE steaming though IS NOT the same.

The Vitaliseur is Not a Pressure Cooker

Pressured steam is too aggressive to penetrate the food. Just look at how fast it goes out of the pot and how hot it gets! Therefore its only interest is to raise temperature to a very high point: most pressure cookers like Instant pot raise temp to 120°C /248°F. This is great to sanitize for sure. However there won’t be many nutrient left after sanitation, will there?

Pressure cooking destroys your nutrients!

Taking the temperature above the boiling point will kill vitamins, decrease bioavailability of trace minerals, destroy fiber thereby raising the glycemic index of your dish, and annihilate plant hormones. ( On that point see Bernadette (maiden name Joyeux, i.e. me) Jastrebski and Christine Bouguet-Joyeux’s book Tout à la vapeur douce, pourquoi et comment, 125 recettes. Paris: Le Rocher, 2019.)

So, why do so much work getting fresh produce if it is to destroy it by cooking it ?

Pressure Cooking is No Faster

Besides, it doesn’t really cook faster. Proof is, most pressure-cooked recipes cook vegetables for over 20 minutes. The only vegetable I’ll cook that long in my steam cooker will be a huge artichoke, a huge potato, or a pumpkin squash.

About the dressing

This dressing is inspired from https://www.eatingbirdfood.com/tomatillo-avocado-dressing/ but my salad needed oil, so I added some olive oil and increased the garlic. I never tried Chopt’s Mexican Goddess Dressing so I’m not bound reproduce any specific taste. Besides, it tastes amazing with my salad. So I made her copycat recipe my own: I did not feel the need to cook the tomatillo ( raw foods are more nutritious), and just added the point of a knife of baking soda to tone down acidity ( after all between balsamic, lime and tomatillo, that would be quite acidic).

This salad is filling, definitely a meal in itself!!

Alternative versions

As described, this salad it is vegan, but It would definitely go well with large shrimps ( thawed, then steamed 5 minutes and seared with garlic, salt and extra virgin olive oil) or steamed slices of chicken (steamed 4-6 minutes) also seared shortly, or a side of grilled chicken!

You may not need the whole dressing… and use the leftovers tomorrow as a carrot, or peppers dip!! Bon appétit!