Asian Greens--Bok Choy and Tokyo Bekana

This final week of the 2010 CSA Season was once again full of asian greens. I meant to post these recipes last week, but time just seem to melt away. Hopefully you still have plenty of the asian green offerings still stored in your fridge, otherwise I believe both the bok choy and the tokyo bekana will be part of next week's extended CSA share (pick up on TUESDAY and WEDNESDAY 1pm until dark) as long as we do not get a freeze this weekend.

When I first graduated from college I worked at the Stroud Water Research Center with a Chinese scientist who was always telling me about this delicious mild asian green--something like a cross between cabbage and romaine lettuce. I was so happy when the Johnny Seed Catalog finally started offering the green he was talking about, known as Tokyo Bekana. Tokyo Bekana is basically the lose leaf version of Napa/Chinese cabbage. It has a wonderful sweet and mild taste and crisp texture. I made a delicious chicken salad last weekend with chiffonade cut tokyo bekana, a curry-lime dressing, finely chopped apple, and dried cranberries (from trader joes)--it was delicious.

Bok Choy is an asian green you might be more familiar with, but still in need of recipe ideas. I have included three recipes all from Barbara Kafka's fantastic recipe book Vegetable Love:

Radiant Bok Choy
This is one of my proudest recipes, with a minimum of ingredients and a maximum of flavor and beauty. The white part of the bok choy turns the brilliant color of Asian mendicants' robes and the green stays intensely emerald.

The vegetable does very well on its own with rice. As a vegetarian dish, it can have soaked dried shittake, stemmed and cut into strips, added during the final six minutes of cooking. It can a succulent sauce and side dish for chicken or fish--or shreds of either can be added for the final six minutes of cooking time.

1 tablespoon of canola oil
2 tablespoons of turmeric
2 pounds of bok choy (about 4 pieces), halved lengthwise
1 can of coconut milk, plus enough water to make 3 cups liquid
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice or 4 lime wedges
In an 8- or 9-inch saucepan, heat the oil over low heat. Stir in the turmeric and salt and cook for about 1 minute. Add the pieces of bok choy, laying them on their sides cramming them in so as to make them compact as possible.

Pour in the coconut-water mixture, cover the pan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook for 6 minutes. The bok choy should sink into the sauce and cook evenly. If some of bok choy is not covered with liquid, turn the pieces. Re-cover and cook for 6 more minutes.

Stir in the lime juice, if using. Or serve hot, accompanied with lime wedges, if desired. This is also good tepid. Serves 4 as a side dish.


Ginger and Garlic Baby Bok Choy
This is a perfect side dish with fish, or serve on a mixed vegetable platter that has no other vegetables using vinegar. It is good hot or cold.

1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 pound baby bok choy (about 35; 5 cups)
2 quarter-size slices peeled fresh ginger, cut into matchstick pieces (about 2 tablespoons)
1 clove garlic, smashed, peeled and cut into thin strips
1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste

In a 10-inch frying pan, heat the oil over medium heat for 3 minutes, or until very hot. Add the bok choy, ginger and garlic. Cook, tossing regularly with two wooden spoons, for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the leaves are completely wilted but the whites are still slightly crunchy. Keep the heat between medium and medium-high so that the pan is sizzling but the oil is not sputtering.

Add the vinager and salt. Cook for 1 minute more. Remove from the heat and serve. Makes 2 cups.

In this recipe, also from Vegetable Love you can replace the napa cabbage with the tokyo bekana. Also the soy-sesame dressing can be replaced with any good Asian dressing--something with ginger would be delicious.

Shredded Napa Salad
Make this in the winter when the selection of other greens is limited. It has a lightly Asian flavor and is very pretty. It's as good as a side dish as it is a first course. It goes very well with fish dishes.

1 ounce dried shittake mushrooms (about 5 medium mushrooms)
1/3 cup rice vinegar
1/8 teaspoon hot red pepper sauce
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/2 pound napa cabbage, shredded (about 4 cups)
2 scallions, trimmed and sliced (about 1/3 cup)
1/3 cup Soy-Sesame Vinaigrette
1 ounce red or daikon radish, trimmed and cut into 1/8-inch slices (about 1/4 cup)

Combine the mushrooms, vinegar, hot pepper sauce, 1/2 cup of water and black pepper in a 2 1/2-quart souffle dish or casserole with a tightly fitted lid. Cover tight with microwave plastic wrap or the lid. Cook at 100% for 5 minutes. If using plastic wrap, prick to release the steam.

Remove from the oven and uncover. Allow to stand until cool enough to handle. Using scissors, remove the mushroom stems and discard. Cut the mushrooms into 1/2-inch strips.

In a large serving bowl, combine the mushrooms with the cabbage, scallions and the dressing. Toss to coat, and scatter the radish slices over. Serves 8.

This Week's Share-Lots of Peas

The relatively hot dry weather has not been the best growing conditions for the greens (the lettuce is still bitter I am afraid, its a nice addition to a milder salad mix) and it has made all the peas come on at once. This will be the last week for the shelling peas, which have gotten a little less sweet and more starchy. They are perfect for making soups. The great website Culinate has this recipe link for a Coconut Milk, Pea and Spinach Soup. If you do not have any spinach left you can substitute the slightly heartier perpetual spinach in this week's share. Perpetual spinach is actually a tender chard that tastes quite a bit like spinach. The stem is very narrow, so you do not have to remove it from the inside of the leaves.

This week's share has stir fry written all over it, with baby bok choy and snow peas what could be better than the addition of beef or shrimp and a nice ginger sauce, click here for an asian noodle recipe using pac choy and snow peas.

This Week's Share
Lettuce Mix
Shelling Peas
Snow Peas
Snap Peas
Chard
Kale
Perpetual Spinach
Baby Bok Choy
Asian Turnips
Cilantro, Dill, and Mint

This week's share-Greens Galore!

Pictured is a salad course created by Bryan Sikora of Talula's Table featuring Inverbrook lettuce (hidden underneath a delicious buttermilk dressing) and pea shoots/flowers--hopefully it will provide a little inspiration for dealing with the greens included in your share this week.

This week's share includes:
Peas--snow, snap and a small amount of shelling
Lettuce Mix
Cooking Greens
Summer Squash
Butterhead Lettuce
Bok Choy
Pea Shoots/flowers
Dandelion Greens
Mint

Fresh chickens available this week.

Recipe Ideas:

Hot and Sour Salmon with Greens
from A Spoonful of Ginger by Nina Simonds

Six Servings

2 1/2 pounds of Bok Choy stem ends and leaf tips trimmed
8 to 9 whole scallions, ends trimmed, cut into thin julienne slices on the diagonal
3 helping tablespoons fresh ginger cut into very thin julienne shreds

Dressing
6 tablespoons soy sauce
3 1/2 tablespoons Chinese black vinegar or Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup sugar, or to taste
2 tablespoons minced garlic

6 salmon steaks, about 6 ounces each

1. Trim the touch outer leaves from the bok choy and discard. Rinse the stalks and leaves and drain. Cut the stalks in half lengthwise. Cut the halves diagonally into 2-inch sections. In a bowl, toss the scallions and ginger with the bok choy sections. Arrange on a heatproof platter.
2. Mix the ingredients of the Dressing, and pour into a serving bowl.
3. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Place the salmon steaks on top of te greens. Pour into a roasting pan several inches of water and heat until boiling. Carefully place the platter of salmon and vegetables on top of the rack or steamer tray in the roasting pan. Cover the top of the pan tightly with aluminum foil. Bake 7 to 9 minutes, or until the fish is cooked.
4. Serve the salmon from the heatproof platter or arrange the steamed vegetables and salmon on serving plates. Spoon some of the dressing on top and serve with steamed rice.

And just incase you have tons of lettuce/salad greens left over from past shares...or have noticed the lettuce getting a little too bitter for your liking--try this recipe for Julienne of Five Lettuce Soup from Barbara Kafka's Vegetable Love.

Julienne of Five Lettuce Soup
Just befoe my lettuce bolts in the hot sun, I have more lettuces of different kinds than I can use. The Haitians recommend lettuce soup to calm the stomach and the nerves. This soup does that and uses up the extra lettuce as well....Different lettuces can be substituted, but try to preserve the ratio of bitter to sweet and soft to firm.

1 cup packed romain lettuce leaves (ribs removed)
1 cup packed Boston/Buttercruch lettuce leaves
1 cup packed leaf lettuce
1 cup packed escarole leaves
1/2 cup packed chicory/dandelion leaves
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
5 cups of basic chicken stock
1/2 cup heavy cream
6 egg yolks
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Wash leaves and dry well. Cut into 1/8-inch strips: This is easiest to do if you stack serveral leaves at a time, roll into a tight wad and slice them across. You can also use the medium slicing disk on a food processor.

Melt the butter in a medium suacepan. Add the lettuces and toss with the butter. When the lettuces are wilted, add the chicken stock and cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, or until the toughest leaves are tender.

In a small bowl. mix the cream with the egg yolks. Gradually stir a small amount of the hot soup into the cream mixture to slowly raise the temperature of the egg yolks. Keep adding soup until the mixture is warm. Whisk the egg yolk mixture into the soup and cook, stiggin constantly, without letting the soup boil, until it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. Season with salt and pepper.
Serves 6 to 8 as a first course.