by Tom Gibson
Now that I’m getting bumper crops of goji berries, I’ve got to figure out how to eat them and all their reputed antioxidants. Ingested by themselves, nobody I’ve met seems to like them much. Neither do the birds, bugs, and deer. The brilliant red-orange berries–presumably visible to most critters–kept emerging all fall and remained virtually untouched .
The goji berry’s mild bittersweet taste does make a nice, but understated contrast as an addition to an apple/orange salad. But the sheer volume of my harvest this fall necessitates a search for more variety.
A web search has turned up a winner. My wife and I would give
the recipe below between a B+ and an A-. And the dressing
would work well on all kinds of salads:
Ingredients
Salad
1 heaped cup red cabbage, shredded
1 medium beetroot, grated
2 carrots, grated
Corn cut from 1 corn cob
1 spring onion, cut on the diagonal, white part only
To garnish: Chopped coriander (cilantro) and a sprinkle of goji berries
Goji Dressing
¾ cup goji berries
4 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon ginger, peeled and chopped
1½ tablespoons white miso
1 tablespoon tahini
Pinch of salt
Grind or two of black pepper
Instructions
Salad
Put the cabbage, beetroot, carrots and corn in a bowl and sprinkle over the onion, gently mix, and garnish with coriander and goji. Set aside while you prepare the dressing
Goji Dressing
Place goji berries into a glass or mug, and cover them, only just, with filtered water. Let them to soak for up to half an hour till nice and soft, keep the water – don’t throw it out
Blend all ingredients with the goji and their soak water till you’ve reached a nice consistency, then pour liberally over the rainbow salad and serve.
One Caveat: The recipe above is clearly meant for dried goji berries, not fresh.
Here’s what my fresh ones looked like:
At 3/4 of a cup, this quantity of goji berries is at least equal to--and maybe more than--the tiny Whole Foods packets of dried berries which sell for $17 apiece.
The end result is as tasty as it is colorful:
