Recipes develop over time: I make tweaks over the years, marking up my cookbooks with notes along the margins. Sometimes I find myself adopting recipes to suit my kids’ tastes, softening the ingredient list and removing the spice in dishes until they don’t look anything like the original recipe. Not for the worse, just different.
But some need less changing than others. They resist changing all but the smallest changes, bending slightly to convenience or preference. This hot dressing for Asian greens is one of those recipes that needs no adjusting.
What are Asian Greens? Think mizuna, a Japanese mustard green with feathered leaves and a mild, peppery flavor. And also tatsoi, also from the mustard family and related to bok choy. Both are cold-resistant and show up in farm shares in the fall.
I think this recipe is from Gourmet, originally. I’ve been going back to it for over 20 years. It’s just so simple: Assemble all ingredients into a small saucepan, heat until the sugar dissolves, then pour it over a platter of washed Asian greens. The greens will wilt and soften. The dressing is pure umami. Each bite is a good one.
But me being me, I do still have headnotes for this recipe:
- For the rice vinegar: The original recipe called for not seasoned, but I always use seasoned. Up to you, I say.
- As for the soy sauce, these days I use gluten-free Tamari.
- For the ginger: I keep fresh ginger root in my freezer. Use a microplane to grate the ginger directly into your saucepan. You don’t need to peel it. Another, extremely easy option that I love is using frozen ginger cubes. It’s an Israeli invention and one of my favorite kitchen hacks of the past decade.
- Feel free to be more generous when it comes to the sesame oil. It’s not one of my husband’s preferred flavors, so I always use it sparingly.
Or you can make it exactly as is below, and it’ll be perfection.
Hot Dressing for Asian Greens
Ingredients
1/4 cup rice vinegar
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons finely grated peeled fresh ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons Asian sesame oil
Directions
Place all ingredients into a small saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring frequently until the sugar dissolves.
While the dressing is still hot, pour over a platter (about 4 cups) of washed Asian greens.
(I tend to soak them in a large bowl of cold water and have the dirt drip to the bottom of the bowl. I use a salad spinner to remove excess water.)
Toss with tongs. Serve and enjoy.
Molly Parr lives in Florence with her husband and two young daughters. She’s been writing her food blog, Cheap Beets, since 2010. Send questions or comments to molly.parr@gmail.com.