Mizuna Salad

I snaked this recipe from a lady with a farm up near Hood River. She has an amazing website and a few cookbooks. What’s great is she farms and usually has similar bounties and ingredients to what Snowgrass will have so I can tug on her expertise in sharing how we can all best enjoy the deliciousness for that crop or season. I’ve tweaked this recipe a bit, adding in salad turnips and herbs. Use this as inspiration and run with it! Check her out here .

She describes the following for mizuna: it is a brassica and is often used in lettuce mixes and used in similar ways to arugula such as a simple salad, tossed onto a hot pizza (where it’ll wilt down and become extremely tender) or even turned into a simple pesto. Where arugula is slightly peppery, mizuna is slightly mustardy.

When you’re working with fresh produce I like to use the approach of “less is more.” This salad is a great recipe to turn to when you’ve got a bundle of fresh mizuna (or arugula for that matter) and a few other simple ingredients from the market.

Ingredients (serves 2-4):

• 1 large bunch of mizuna

• 2-3 radishes, very thinly sliced and a few salad turnips, very thinly sliced

• 2-3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

• 1 tablespoons fresh lemon juice + additional to taste

• flakey sea salt

• 2 Tablespoons sunflower seeds, lightly toasted on the stovetop for a few minutes

• a few thin slices of fresh Parmesan cheese (optional)

• handful of chopped mixed herbs (mint, parsley, chives, basil) (optional)

In a large bowl toss the mizuna with the radishes and salad turnips and drizzle in the olive oil and lemon juice. Toss well. Sprinkle the salad with a few healthy pinches of flakey sea salt, the toasted sunflower seeds, shaved parmesan (if using) and herbs (if using). Serve immediately.

*Use this recipe as a guide *Adjust measurements and ingredients as necessary