Editor's note: This recipe is excerpted from Harumi's Japanese Cooking , by Harumi Kurihara. To read more about Harumi, click here.
Mushi Dori no Gomadare Salad
Sesame sauce using the juices from cooked chicken is so easy to prepare. This style of dressing with sesame, gomadare, is very common in Japanese cooking and is used for both meat and vegetables. This particular chicken dish makes a lovely appetizer, but it also goes very well with cold noodles.
Gomadare — meaning "dressed with sesame sauce" — can be made either with ready-made sesame paste or, more traditionally, by grinding toasted sesame seeds to a rough paste in a suribachi (pestle and mortar). Tahini, a Greek-style sesame paste is a reasonable and easily available substitute, but as it is not made from toasted sesame there is a slight difference in flavor. Unsweetened peanut butter is another possible substitute.
