No. 1: Tahini Dressing & Pickled Onions

Salads deserve better.

Welcome to the FIRST OFFICIAL ISSUE of the Glass Head Kitchen Newsletter! This will be your place to find the full recipes and notes for all the videos on our Instagram, as well as all sorts of other thoughts and feelings. This week, we’ll be featuring recipes for a tahini salad dressing and pickled onions (which go GREAT together, btw).

To start things off with a hill I’ll die on, SALADS SHOULD NOT BE BORING!!!! If I had a dollar for every time someone in a movie or TV show is eating what looks like a bowl of plain iceberg lettuce as a meal, maybe I would be able to afford a carton of eggs in 2023 (ha ha, but really, can u pls keep working on that, Swifties). For much of my life, I avoided salad because I considered it to be a diet-culture-food that was wilty, bland, watery, and left me feeling just as hungry (if not hungrier) than I was when I started eating it. After branching out into different dressings, leafy greens, and, uh, TOPPINGS??, I now consider a big salad to be one of my favorite foods. If you, like me, want to see the humble salad shake off the dust of calorie counting and fully embrace its renaissance era – I am here to tell you:

in this house, we <3 Aragorn

This tahini salad dressing is tangy, creamy, spicy, salty, sweet, and just generally delicious. I particularly love it over a bed of big leafy butter lettuce, topped with a hard boiled egg, green onion, cilantro, cucumber, kalamata olives, dried figs, and pickled onions (recipe for pickled onions below!). But truly, I think it would be great on anything, or even a marinade for fish or meat??? Maybe there will be a recipe for that later. WHO’S TO SAY.

As for pickled onions - you name a savory dish, and they’ll be a terrific addition. Tacos? Burgers? Baked potatoes? Eggs? Guacamole? Yes. To everything. All the time. Pasta? Haven’t tried it, but I bet you could make it work. We have an entire shelf in the door of our refrigerator that is basically devoted to pickled/fermented things, but pickled onions are always the first to be eaten. They add a tangy, crunchy element that’s welcome in almost any dish.

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Creamy Spicy Tahini Dressing

Ingredients:

1 ½ tbsp tahini

2 tsp rice vinegar

1 tsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp maple syrup

1 tsp lemon juice

2 tsp hot sauce of your choice (optional)

1 clove of garlic, grated or very finely chopped

1 tbsp olive oil or sesame oil

Salt

Black pepper

Directions:

In a small bowl, combine 1 ½ tbsp tahini, 2 tsp rice vinegar, 1 tsp Dijon mustard, 1 tsp maple syrup, 1 tsp lemon juice, 2 tsp hot sauce, and 1 clove of garlic. Whisk to combine. While whisking, slowly drizzle in 1 tbsp olive oil or sesame oil. Add just a splash of water to thin it out. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve over whatever salad your heart desires.

Note: Recipes should be adaptable to the cook who’s preparing it. While these are the ingredient portions I use, you should experiment and make it your own. Case in point: this recipe did not contain hot sauce until literally about 16 hours before sending this newsletter out, then I tried it and it was amazing and here we are.

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Quick Pickled Onions

Ingredients:

1 large red onion

1 garlic clove

4 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 tablespoons kosher salt

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 cups white vinegar

2 cups water

Directions

1. Slice 1 red onion into about ⅙ inch slices with a knife or mandolin. Stuff slices into a 32oz mason jar.

2. Slice garlic clove lengthwise into about 5-8 slices. 

3. Into a medium saucepan, add garlic, 4 tbsp sugar, 2 tbsp salt, 1 tsp ground black pepper, 2 cups vinegar, and 2 cups water. Bring to a boil then kill the heat. 

4. While the brine is very hot, carefully pour it over the onions in the mason jar (be sure to pick out any of the garlic pieces still stuck in the pan and add them to the jar). 

5. Seal the lid and refrigerate overnight (or at least 12 hours).

6. EAT THOSE ONIONS ON EVERYTHING!! 

Note: You can use this brine for pickling *anything*! Cucumbers (duh), carrots, cauliflower, jalapeños, shallots…the possibilities are endless. And it’s very adaptable - feel free to add whatever aromatics you like (fresh herbs, more garlic, red pepper flakes, you get it).

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Thanks for hanging out with us on week 1. Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram and we’ll SEE U SOON!!!