It was the Kaffir Lime dressing that did it. We bought a bottle at Mercato in the Fort, sold by Comida Rica. It sat in the fridge for a few weeks before we were able to try it. Because we had quite a lot of mangoes from our annual Holy Week sojourn to Zambales, I decided to try the dressing with a mango salad, Thai-style. We loved it so much that we inflicted it on our families on Mother’s Day, and so we ran out.

Not to be defeated, I decided to try and replicate the dressing. I found a recipe that seemed to have the right ingredients, and played it by ear. Luckily, I got the flavor close enough, and Oneal insists it tastes better than the Comida Rica dressing.

We brought the dressing and the salad to Karen’s for Sunday lunch, and it was quite a hit! So we’re sharing it now with everyone. Enjoy!

Salad:

• Arugula – Chop off the stalks and trim the leaves into bite-sized pieces. Try to get baby arugula, also called rocket, if you want to avoid the bitter taste of older leaves. Or do away with arugula together, and find other leaves that suit your taste.
• Basil – Plucked from the stalks. Trim the bigger leaves into bite-sized pieces.
• Carrots – Peeled and julienned
• Coriander (Wansuy) – Plucked from the stalks
• Cucumber – Peeled and julienned, seeds removed if you prefer
• Mangoes – Peeled and diced
• Mint – Plucked from the stalks. Trim the bigger leaves into bite-sized pieces.
• Mixed greens – Trim the leaves into bite-sized pieces.

Dressing:

• Brown sugar – 1 tbsp
• Chili powder – ½ tsp
• Dried kaffir leaves – 5 leaves, crushed
• Lemon juice – From 1 lemon
• Patis – 1 tbsp
• Sweet chili sauce – 4 tbsp
• Warm water – ¼ cup
• Optional: Dried garlic chips

Salad Directions: Toss salad ingredients in a large bowl. Toss well for a pretty distribution of color.

Dressing Directions: Mix sweet chili sauce, brown sugar, lemon juice, patis and water in a bowl. Add chili powder and dried kaffir leaves. Optional: Crush garlic chips and mix into dressing. This will make the dressing spicier.

Serve dressing alongside salad and a bowl of extra mint leaves.

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Rej & i have decided to get back in shape. we have started a fitness routine to generally keep in good health and prepare for the wedding fittings in the upcoming months. some costumes are not as forgiving as others.

We’ve done a lot of walking in the past few days, our routes are usually part of our actual fitness program while other times we walk around while waiting for my car getting repaired, sometimes when i’m not available, Rej would drag Meester Dante along to go walking in UP and around Cubao. we also did some jump rope exercises in the Yale yard & Rej did this also while she was at Antipolo.

i played golf with my high-school barkada once last week, that takes a lot of walking over hills, sand traps & fairways. i also got my old road racer bike out of storage and had it repaired, new tires & brakes were required. i went biking with Master Cloner Dexter around the UP Diliman oval, we did about 7 or so rounds, which he said was equivalent to about 13km. we plan to do this at least twice a week. funny thing was, i didn’t know the road (A. Roces?)in front of UP Law & Engineering was slightly downhill so we started to coast a little faster than planned, which was when i found out that my brakes were so old the rubber had petrified and didn’t have any traction on the wheels, it took about 60 or so meters of hard braking before i would be able to stop.

once in a while when I’m at Roseroland playing on the Xbox, i would get on my mom’s elliptical exercise machine and pedal while playing Left 4 Dead, a Zombie Apocalypse shooting game, which, if you think about it, is rather appropriate, you have to run away from the hundreds of high speed zombies while running on the exercise machine, the next step would be to power the Xbox with the pedaling, once you stop, you’re dead.

anyway, we intend to continue this exercise routine as regularly as possible not just for 2010, but for our own good health.

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