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I recently made a jar of homemade mayonnaise days ago, and it did not occur to me that I can equally make coleslaw and then dressed it with the mayonnaise which I have made earlier. I went outside town today, and I saw some fresh carrots, cucumbers and green bell peppers and I decided to purchase few of them because I wanted eating them just like that, until I remembered my homemade mayonnaise, which led to my conversion of fruits to coleslaw. For this reason, I had to go back and get a little cabbage for my coleslaw, just not to make it incomplete.
One of my food testimonies is that I once in my life hated salads, coleslaw or anything that hadto do with raw vegetables. However, I have now learnt to eat some of these foods if not all now because, have known their benefits. You may never know how important it is to consume fresh vegetables, until you research on the health benefits and start eating them. I used to wonder then why people often eat uncooked vegetables while I was a kid, not until I was invited to book lunch of one of our family friends, and was served with fresh and creamy looking coleslaw as a side dish with fried rice, i must say this, I was very sad that day, and I almost threw up in that gathering, but I had to behave myself and just manage to eat about 1-2 tablespoons of it, something that I detested so much in my house whenever it was prepared, and there It was placed right in front of me. I must say this; you need to eat fresh foods, in order to live fresh every single day.
What is coleslaw?
Coleslaw is a blend of raw cabbage, carrot and green pepper and then dressed with cream or mayonnaise; different crunchy vegetables can be added to make coleslaw + vinegar or lime. Coleslaw is a great way of eating different fresh vegetables in one serving. Coleslaw is sometimes refers to as cole slaw or just slaw by some people.
How to enjoy coleslaw
Coleslaw can be served as a side dish with grill fish, fried pork, fried chicken, barbecued meat (suya) sandwiches, burgers, rice and spaghetti or macaroni jollof and also with fried potato chips or with yam chips.
Coleslaw salad variation
Since coleslaw is a blend of different fresh shredded vegetables, one is not limited on the type of vegetables, spices and creams to use for this. Both green and purple cabbages could be used. Other vegetables to be used for making coleslaw are apples, bell peppers, carrots, and peas and even fruits like pineapple and apple. The seasonings could include salt, onions, raisins, and celery seeds, also for the dressing, whipping cream, salad cream, sour cream, mayonnaise, fresh yoghurt, butter milk could be used for dressing coleslaw. There are three ways in which the cabbage can be prepared such as, sliced in small squares, finely chopped pieces and lastly, in thin strips.
Ingredients for making coleslaw
- 1 Small fresh cabbage
- 3-4 Medium carrots or more
- 1 Green bell pepper
- Salad cream or mayonnaise, as desired
- 1 Small sized fresh cucumber (optional)
- Teaspoon black pepper (optional)
- 1 Teaspoonsugar (optional)
- A pinch of salt
Procedures for making easy coleslaw salad
Preparation time: 10 minutes serve: 4 servings
- Scrape the back of your carrots, wash and grate them with a grater into thin strips and keep aside.
- Pull out the harder leaves from the cabbage, rinse in salt water to get rid of ants or earthworm. Use a knife to shred the cabbage into long but thin strips and keep aside.
- Wash the cucumber and cut it into thin circles or cut into thin square shapes whichever way you prefer them, and keep aside.
- Cut the green bell pepper into thin strips too and keep aside. If you are using onions you can do same too.
- Pour the salad cream or mayonnaise into a comfortable bowl and add sugar and salt and also sprinkle black pepper to it and mix, to create a dressing for you coleslaw.
- Bring all the vegetables together and carefully mix them up to combine.
- Generously add the salad cream over the combined vegetables and mix to incorporate. Add more salt, sugar and pepper to it if need be.
- Chill the coleslaw a little in the fridge before serving over fried chicken or rice or any food of your choice. Coleslaw is sweeter when it is chilled.
TIps for easy coleslaw
- If you are using fresh or baby carrots, do not bother scraping since they are already tender.
- You may choose to add salad cream and mayonnaise or just one of them of the cream to your coleslaw.
- If you love creamier coleslaw, just go ahead and add more cream to it.
- To get some nice and crunchy coleslaw, use fresh vegetables to prepare this.
- You can include boiled egg in your coleslaw if you prefer.
- Raw broccoli can be used in place of cabbage to prepare coleslaw.
- Pineapple contains natural sugar, you can omit sugar and add sliced pineapples to you coleslaw if you prefer that.
- You can either soak the shredded cabbage in warm water or soak it in salt water for 2 minutes to get rid of its odour, if you are easily irritated by the odour. The water should be mild in other not to destroy the crunchiness and the freshness of the cabbage, after that, let the cabbage sit on a colander to drain excess liquid.
- Add some lemon juice to your coleslaw if you love some sour flavour.
Steps on how to make a simplecoleslaw
1. Wash all your vegetablesand grate them with a grater, and then keep aside.
2. Soak the shredded cabbage in a bowl containing salt water for 2 minute, to get rid of the raw flavour. Ifyou dont bother about the flavour just skip this step.
3. Combine all the shredded vegetables together in one bowl, and probably season with a pinch of salt and pepper or you can season your salad cream if you want. if you don need seasoning , skip it.
4. Add enough of the salad cream or the mayonnaise to the vegetables and mix well to incorporate.
5. Chill it for 5 minutes in the fridge before serving it