Hanoi, my city, is experiencing the best time of autumn now. Persimmon is also a sign of Hanoi’s autumn, along with green sticky rice – as I mentioned in the previous posts, big chrysanthemum, and the smell of "milk flower" trees (hoa sua) filled up the streets at night.
Persimmons are in season now. There are many different kinds of persimmons, some are crunchy, some are tender and juicy. Some are green, some are greeny yellow, some are red. Some are really big, some are so tiny. For me, what I like the best is the green tiny crunchy ones, however, nowadays they are getting more scarce when the big kinds become more popular.
I thought what if I use the persimmons to make into some dishes as I’ve never eaten such a food. After searching on the Internet and I found that persimmons certainly can be made into good foods. So I imagined how to combine some ingredients including persimmon to make a simple salad. Finally, I came up with this salad. I told my mom what I was gonna do, and she suggested that I use green apple in the salad to balance the taste and add good flavor to the salad. Thanks for that, the salad I created this time was really perfect. It made me surprised for the first time I tried to come up with a totally new dish.
These persimmons I used were crunchy and gently sweet, though they are not the ones I like most.
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I got this recipe from my cookbook "Culina Mundi". The book features selected dishes among the most popular dishes of world’s cuisines. This salad is originated in Cuba. Finding the recipe is easy to follow, and that I like having pineapple in the food I eat, so I made up my mind to make this salad for dinner.
With salads that use mayonnaise to combine the ingredients, I often prefer to chill the salad before serving. I find having a cool salad more palatable. This salad, in particular, introduced to me a new taste and new experience about the world of salads. It was not so amazing to say "wow", but I liked it.
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This is the first time I cooked and tasted this kind of cocktail. I am still not sure why this dish is called "cocktail", but finding that the dish seems to be refreshing, I thought: it’s quite simple, why not make a try?
There’s no way I got dissappointed at this dish. It was really great to serve as an appertizer. The colors of the whole cocktail cup were eye-catching with the red and green in harmony with the fine color of the "dressing" or "cocktail sauce"? It had a tangy taste that impressed me right at the first bite. It’s better that you use live prawns (now in Vietnam, I can easily buy live prawns right at wet markets) as they are fresher and the texture is firmer.
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These stuffed cherry tomatoes with tuna mixture definitely challenge your patience. It’s takes time and requires some dexterity. If you are in a hurry or don’t want to make it so complicated, you can just half the tomatoes and top each half a little tuna mixture.
I don’t have a tool that makes the task easier and faster. I had to use the handle of a small spoon to take out the seeds and the pulp inside the tomatoes. Then again, I used the end of the spoon handle to insert the tuna mixture, little by little, into the inside of each tomato. I could manage half of the tomatoes, the rest I just cut into halves and topped them with tuna mixture.
These tuna stuffed tomatoes do worth your time and patience. They are very refreshing and tasty. The cherry tomatoes are firm, sweet and juicy. Put the whole tomato into your mouth, take a firm bite and you will feel the mayonnaise tuna coming out and blending with the tomato. It is very interesting experience. The tuna mixture should be chilled for the flavor and taste to be leveraged, becoming even tastier.
The cute little stuffed tomatoes really motivated us to take more photos of them.
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