One of the islands I visited this past summer was Kos, located in the south Aegean Sea, about 2 hours north (by ferry) from Rhodes.

After checking into my hotel, I sent a message to my friend Chef Sakis Kalliontzis to ask him for recommendations on where to eat on the island. Chef had done some consulting work before on the island and I knew he would offer some good tips.

By coincidence (and to our surprise), he is the consulting chef for the hotel where I was staying. I didn’t have to go far!

Chef spoke with the kitchen staff and they kindly provided me with a tasting menu for the evening. One of the dishes was this tomato salad with wine-washed cheese (krasotyri) of Kos, dried figs and croutons.

The dressing was outstanding and I asked chef for the recipe – he was kind enough to share.

What I have here is a unique dressing that will have your guests guessing and asking you for the recipe. It’s an east meets west dressing with some Asian ingredients like Miso in the mix. Other ingredients of note are freeze dried figs and a goat cheese stuffed with figs.

Try it…you’re gonna love it!

Tomato Salad with Umami Dressing

Recipe by Peter MinakiCourse: SaladsDifficulty: Easy

Servings

4

servings

Prep time

15

minutes

Ingredients

• Umami Dressing

• 2 Tbsp. light Miso paste

• 1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard

• 1 Tbsp. light oyster sauce

• 2 Tbsp. grape molasses (petimezi) or honey

• 1 clove of garlic, minced

• 1/4 cup cup lemon juice

• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar

• 3/4 cup oil (half olive oil + have sunflower oil

• salt and pepper to taste

• For the Salad

• approx 12-14 campari tomatoes, quartered

• 1 scallion, thinly sliced

• 1 tsp. sea salt

• 2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

• 1 Tbsp. red wine vinegar

• 1 heaping cup of baby arugula (or micro-greens)

• Garnishes

• PC fig goat cheese

• Freeze dried figs

• Croutons

Directions

• Into a jar, add the miso, mustard, oyster sauce, molasses, garlic, lemon juice and vinegar and seal jar. Shake to combine. Add the oil, a pinch of salt and pepper, seal and shake until incorporated. Adjust seasoning.
• Place your tomatoes, scallions and arugula in a bowl. Sprinkle salt, add olive oil and vinegar and toss to combine. Allow 5 minutes for tomatoes to marinate.
• Spoon dressing on the bottom of your salad plate/platter and place tomatoes and juices over the dressing.
• Arrange dried figs over the salad (snap in half if too big), add croutons and crumble goat cheese. Serve family style.

Notes

• TIP: Place your goat cheese in the freeze to firm up so you can cut into more uniform pieces (less on your hands).