Three "Otoshi" appetizers お通し３品

Ok, this is a sort of padding post. These were three small snacks I made on a weekday evening, using some left overs from our March birthday party. Since I forgot to take a picture of the asparagus with tofu dressing from Tako Grill, this is a good chance to show how this dish looked since I used some of it here. Of course, the idea of multiple small "Otoshi" came from "Suiko" 酔香 and "Shuhai" 酒杯.

From left to right; asparagus with tofu dressing アスパラの白和え, potato salad with rakkyo and pickled myouga ラッキョウと冥加いりポテトサラダ, chicken salad* チキンサラダ.

Here is the close up of asparagus with tofu dressing. For this presentation, I further sliced the asparagus pieces on a slant and also added drops of light colored soy sauce to add a bit more saltiness appropriate for a drinking snack.

You cannot see well but there are sliced home-made pickled myouga (this was the last batch from the last year’s harvest) and picked Japanese cocktail onion or "rakkyo".

* I did not take a picture of  the "chicken salad". I just used breast meat from a leftover Weber hot smoked chicken which I shredded in small strands by hand and dressed with mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, lemon juice with finely chopped  celery.
For a week day evening, this was a rather stupendous "otoshi" drinking snack—if I do say so myself.

We opened Havens Spring Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon 2010. This has a rather classic Napa Cab profile of nice black fruits and tons of vanilla upfront. These three "otoshi" are rather neutral and go well with either sake or wine and certainly went well with this California Cab.