Seasonal vegetable: Mustard

Seasonal vegetable

By Will Steward, Living Larder

Mustard greens

Adiverse species of plant in the brassica family – hence its willingness to grow through the cold winter months and into spring. Its peppery fl avour is often found in salads, but it is less commonly grown for cooking. It is a staple of our growing year and a personal favourite cooked with leeks and white fi sh. Its origin is in oriental cooking and it shares many similarities with its better-known Pak Choi and Bok Choi cousins. Unlike many brassicas, the stalk is the ‘main event’ of this unusual green as it adds juiciness and crunch to many an oriental-styled soup or broth.

Mustard greens with lemongrass and chilli

Ingredients

400g of mustard greens 2 cloves of garlic – fi nely sliced 1 red chilli – fi nely sliced 1 stalk of lemongrass – central part only fi nely sliced 1 tsp of ground turmeric 1 tbsp of sesame oil 1 tbsp of dark soy sauce 2 tbsp of fi sh sauce 2 tbsp of lime juice 1 tsp of honey

Method

Wash your mustard greens well – no need to remove the midribs as they give a nice crunch once cooked; our leaves were small so we kept them whole.

Heat the sesame oil in a large frying pan – add the grated garlic, lemon grass, chilli and turmeric – gently fry until it smells cooked, add the mustard leaves and stir fry until they are softened.

Mix together the remaining ingredients (soy sauce, fi sh sauce, lime juice and honey) add to the frying pan – stir through and serve immediately with some sticky white rice.