citrus, mushrooms, greens, and beans, with a ginger dressing

These enoki mushrooms are from Japan or Korea, they are mild in flavour and crunchy in texture: they made great salad toppers. Ant and I went to our first care group meeting with our new church friends and we had a lovely pot luck meal together. Our host asked for salads to be brought--I was very happy to oblige!


As with all salad recipes, the ingredients and amounts are usually just suggestions. I seldom follow a salad recipe prescriptively, and I encourage you to also use the recipe and photos as inspiration rather than instructions. Sometimes I use a proper recipe for a salad dressing; the ginger-lime dressing I've used here is just a simple vinaigrette with fresh ginger root added. Make your own potluck salad by adding a bit of whatever you have and think would taste good together.


I used half a pomelo (above) as the citrus in this salad--it's a bit like a huge grapefruit but with a less acidic taste. I used choy sum (Chinese flowering broccoli) as the greens, and blanched them; other options would be spinach, kale, bok choy, or cabbage. Steam the greens if they are not tender.

Citrus, Mushrooms, Greens, and Beans Salad
serves 10 as a side dish

for the salad:
3-4 large handfuls choy sum, or other greens
half a pomelo (or 1 grapefruit)
1 large or 2 medium carrots
1 can cannellini beans, drained, or 2 c cooked beans
enoki mushrooms, to garnish (about a third of the amount in the picture above)

for the dressing:
1 cm fresh ginger root, peeled and sliced
juice of 1 lime
3 T olive oil
salt and pepper

Bring a big pot of water to boil and add the greens. Cook for two minutes, then drain and refresh in cold water to retain the colour of the greens and stop them cooking further. Add to a large bowl.
Remove the flesh of the pomelo to the bowl and discard the membranes and seeds.
Peel the carrot and then use the peeler to make thin slices of the whole carrot. Add to the bowl.
Add the cannellini beans.

Make the dressing by combining all the ingredients in a food processor and whisking until emulsified. Or, finely grate the ginger and whisk the ingredients by hand.
Toss the dressing with the salad and top with the mushrooms.