Wasabi Dressing

This feisty salad dressing is from a more complete salad recipe in Food & Wine. I post the dressing recipe by itself here, because it lends itself to so many salad ingredients.

Start with a bed of "neutral" lettuce like butter lettuce. Then, add your favorites. Poached shrimp or chicken. Asian pear. Cucumber. Avocado. Scallions. Celery. Water chestnuts. You name it. (Although notice that these are not strongly flavored ingredients. You want the dressing to star in this salad. So I'd avoid things like radishes and red onion.) Then, instead of croutons, top it with sliced almonds or even better...slightly crushed wasabi peas. Yum.

Wasabi Dressing
Makes almost one cup dressing.
(These are the original proportions, but I halved the recipe quite easily.)

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
2 1/2 tablespoons wasabi powder
1 1/2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 1/2 tablespoons water
Salt and pepper

Whisk all ingredients together and season with salt and pepper.