The beautiful colors of the Sesame Asparagus and Carrot Chop stood out to me as I paged through my copy of Smitten Kitchen Keepers. This is essentially a big pile of chopped veggies dressed in a sriracha mayo, so I figured it’d be a good side dish early in farmer’s market season, when I could get asparagus and carrots at the market.

This is really easy to put together, you just chop the asparagus and carrots, and let them sit in some rice vinegar while you make the dressing. Mine came out dressed more heavily than Deb’s did, and I’m not sure why. But you could easily enough serve the dressing on the side and add however much you like.

I served this as part of a tofu bowl, which I based on the Sesame Rice Bowls with Tofu, Quickles, & Peanut Sauce from Julia Turshen’s Simply Julia. I made the rice, tofu, and quickles (quick pickles) as she directs, but skipped the peanut sauce.

The Sesame Asparagus and Carrot Chop was great. Very fresh and light, with a good, but not overwhelming, flavor from the sriracha mayo. The other elements were not as much of a success. You include some sesame oil when you prepare the rice for this dish, and I think things just tasted too much the same. It needed a contrast of some sort. My husband thought chopped scallions on top, I think it would have been better with plain rice.