Poke Salad is a Hawaiian dish seasoned with Hawaiian red salt. I took the basic veggie ingredients and put them together for a funky vegetarian aspic.
The Stock / Gel
2 cups water
1 or 2 teaspoons Hawaiian red salt
1 piece kombu
2 dried hot peppers
1 tsp sesame oil
2 Tablespoons agar-agar flakes
Bring water, kombu, peppers and sesame oil to a boil. Whisk in the agar-agar and continue whisking until all of the agar is dissolved.
The Veggie Cups
This is a little more mix and match. Fill 1/2 cup molds with combinations of the following:
cucumber, sliced
tomato, sliced
spring onion, minced
fresh hot pepper, minced
sesame seeds
fresh or reconstituted seaweed
Remove the kombu and hot peppers from the broth. Fill the molds with broth. Allow to cool to room temperature, then transfer to the refrigerator. The agar should set up fairly quickly, but if you want these for an event they should probably be made the day before.
My molds just required a little wiggling and the whole thing popped out perfectly.
Here's a picture with the gelled salad in my bento along with red leaf lettuce (top - the bottom contains green bean cookies and baked tofu). It got a little mashed before lunch, but was still pretty tasty.
