Avocado Salad with Ginger and Peanuts

To begin with, I'll issue a warning. Yes, this is only a simple salad, but still, you need to expect some 1-2 hrs preparation time. You might need noticeably less, though.

I became quite annoyed at the cooking instructions of this recipe. You are instructed to cook the vinegar with sugar and ginger, "as the dressing bubbles gently and thickens, about 5 minutes". After 5 minutes, this dressing is nowhere even near thickening. The recipe continues, "When it gets noticeably syrupy, remove from the heat, cool, ..." It took 40 min for the dressing to become syrupy, and when it finally did, I cooled it au bain marie, and it became hard and sticky. Whoops. I had to add 2 large tablespoons of water and reheat and recool it to get the consistency I wanted.

The bottom line was that once you've made the salad, it's actually quite nice, provided that you don't eat too much of it. It's not well suited to be served as a whole meal, but's it's nice, and something rather unusal as a side.