Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Shishito Peppers
Carrots or Cabbage
Kkaennip (Perilla)
Thai Basil
Scallions
Blistered Shishito Peppers with Miso
Three Cup Chicken with Shishito Peppers
Cabbage Cucumber Salad with Miso Sesame Dressing
Cucumbers with Scallions and Chili Oil
Japanese Potato Salad with Cucumbers, Carrots, & Red Onion
Pan-Fried Cucumber with Perilla (Tia To)
Dai Mint and Tomato Salad – Hot Sour Salty Sweet by Jeffery Alford and Naomi Duguid
The Dai, like the Chinese, prefer their tomatoes a little green, just before their fullest sweet ripeness. Perhaps it’s an aesthetic question: The mix of green and red is more interesting to the eye than the uniform red of ripe tomatoes. Or perhaps it’s beacuase tomatoes enter the regional cuisine as a slightly sour vegetable, rather than with the sweetness and ripeness as their prime characteristic. All of which is to say that you should, as we do, use the tomatoes that please you. This salad is simple to make and delicious. It’s like a half-pounded Mexican salsa, ideal for scooping up with Thai-Lao Crispy rice crackers or sticky rice or pork cracklings.
2 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp salt
a little minced chile, jalapeno (optional)
1 cup tender mint leaves or Thai basil, coarsely torn
2-3 scallion, trimmed, sliced lengthwise into ribbons and then cut crosswise into 1-inch lengths
5 medium tomatoes, thinly sliced
1 Tbls hot chile oil
Place the garlic and salt in a large mortar and pound together. Or place them in a large bowl and use the back of a flat spoon to mash them against the side of the bowl. Add the fresh chile, the mint, and the scallions and continue to pound or mash to soften and blend. Add the tomatoes and gently pound or mash until broken up a little. Add the chile oil and toss well. Serve the salad mounded in a shallow bowl, with the juices poured over.
Note: If the mint is coarse or rough, finely chop the leaves; or substitute Asian basil leaves.
New Cabbage with Scallions – The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis
The first time we would cook and serve our newly grown garden cabbage was on a wheat-threshing day. We would cut up many heads and cook them in a large iron pot with liquid from the pork shoulder and a small amount of fat for seasoning. Cabbage cooked that way was a hearty fare, good sustenance for hardworking men. We children usually had the food that was left over from the midday meal that night for supper and thought it was just great. No other food in the world seemed to have quite the good flavor of what was left over from a wheat-threshing dinner.
1 2-pound head new cabbage
1/3 cup tender green scallion tops, cut into ¼” slices
2 cups boiling water, or preferably stock from boiled pork shoulder
3 Tbls freshly rendered fat from bacon or ham
salt and freshly ground pepper
To prepare the cabbage, trim away the outside leaves and cut the head into quarters. Cut away the core, leaving just enough to hold the leaves intact. Place the pieces of cabbage in a bowl of cold water for about 15 minutes or so to wash out any dust or bugs, particularly if it has come straight out of the garden. Remove, drain in a colander, then place in a 3-quart saucepan and add the scallion tops to give added flavor and color. Pour the boiling water or stock over and toss the cabbage with two spoons to make sure that each piece is scalded. Add the fat so that it coats the cabbage, then turn the burner low so that the cabbage boils briskly but not too rapidly for 25-30 minutes –any longer and the cabbage will become too soft and its taste will change. Drain. Toss the salt to taste and a good grating of freshly ground pepper to heighten the flavor. Serve hot.