Sunday we came home from a camping trip to a fridge with not much in it, save for half cube of tofu and a magical bag of beet greens. That and one lone boca burger. I don’t know how the greens survived the nuclear winter that seems to have decimated the rest of the contents of our fridge. The tofu I understand but fresh greens? Where’d they come from?

This is a pretty conventional recipe. For whatever reason it is almost always a chicken salad. If you don’t eat chicken or don’t have chicken or don’t feel like having chicken tonight, no big thing. Use something else. I have a tofu technique that I’m fond of, that goes something like:

  • Iron skillet
  • Some oil, (not olive oil: canola or safflower or something higher heat than olive oil)
  • a little bit of dark sesame oil
  • tofu, in cubes
  • soy sauce

Get the tofu going in a little oil on pretty high heat, but not the very highest. Just a little oil, enough to coat the pan. We’re not deep frying here. Leave it. Do other things. Stir it from time to time. When it starts to brown a little, put a cap-full of soy sauce in the pan and prepare to stir madly while the soy sauce caramelizes on the tofu and makes it really crispy. There is probably a better word for the effect than caramelize, but you get the idea.

So Sunday night, the other things I was doing were washing the beet greens and cooking cellophane noodles. I drained the noodles and dumped them, hot, onto the greens.

Then I called my sister who, so far as I can tell, is not on the internet to be found and linked to, and who always knows what to put in dressings. She suggested a dressing of …

  • Chili oil (actually, I used some Thai chili paste)
  • Sesame oil (dark)
  • Soy sauce (I always use Tamari. I don’t know if that matters or not. If you tear open a few old takeout packets the sky will not fall.)
  • Rice vinegar
  • lime juice
  • and a dash of fish sauce

I’m going to file this under vegan because the fish sauce is optional, not because I think fish grown on trees. My sister is a vegetarian: fish sauce was not on her ingredients list, but I like a little fish sauce.

If you’re anything like me, you’re annoyed that there aren’t any portions above. If you call Winnie for recipe advice she’ll only give you “oh a little and then a bit,” and the truth is that learning to cook is about learning to make some sesame dressing, stick your finger in it, taste it and think “hmm. too salty.” and add some more rice vinegar and limes.

So there you are. There we were anyway. Mix it together. Eat. If you have other vegetables: scallions, cucumbers, asparagus … it is a salad. This is the sort of summer salad that should be a staple in my life. I don’t know why it isn’t.