One great sauce, two fantastic ways to use it

Your new go-to for weeknights & spring

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Greetings, and welcome to today’s Stories from Catbird Cottage! The goldfinches outside my office window are transitioning into their “Peep yellow” hue and signs of spring are everywhere… that is, if you look closely. Mostly everything still feels like a bedraggled mess, but if you get down low to the ground, many small shoots have well begun their emergence into this year. My hellebores are up and sharing their cheer, and the stout spires of the hyacinths are making their way. The first daffodils out front are nodding, reliably sunny in their disposition, and so welcome.

For wild things, hairy bittercress dots various garden beds, prompting me to pull them while they’re still tender to adorn soups, sautés, and salads with their peppery verve. The field garlic is everywhere. I discovered the first unassuming clumps of garlic mustard while retrieving my mail the other day, which means over the weekend I’ll be uprooting them and cooking them into savory pie, folding them into pasta, and generally enjoying their punchy character. They are a highly invasive (and delicious) plant - learn more about it and many other favorite wild springs foods, right here.

Which brings me to this moment.

It’s barely spring AND YET everything is going to change in no time. It’s a funny moment, holding both thoughts together in one’s mind, a very pregnant soon-but-not-yet. Given the timing, I’m guessing you and me both are craving the return of all the exciting spring players. Next week, look forward to one of those!

For now, I’m sharing *two* easy preparations that incorporate one repertoire-worthy sauce. This sauce adds both brightness and punch, and (depending on what you add it to) conjures the inviting, warm days to come. It is ginger scallion sauce: a brilliant and easy way to boost flavor, originating in Cantonese cooking (which emphasizes the flavor of ingredients over seasonings). If you know me, I’m always interested in textural contrast, so I’ve included layers of crunchy bits to add more oomph to the overall experience.

Once spring fully arrives I will be short on time. I’ll be in the gardens sowing seeds, weeding, laying mulch, and generally working to get out ahead as the growing season gets afoot. With these long days it’s a saving grace to have food that can come together quickly - like almost instantly - and still eat well. Enter this ginger-scallion sauce. The only time it requires is to chop the elements, then toss it all together. You could shorten even that by blitzing them in a food processor…

Those two delicious dishes? A quick chopped salad, and a satisfying pasta for busy weeknights. These are also the kind of dishes that save you when there’s not much in the fridge. That they are both vegan is a win for plant-based eating, but you could add shrimp or scallops to the pasta for a feast, and tinned fish or sausage to the salad. Fyi, both dishes also use the same sprinkles (those crunchy bits!) to garnish. If you stock a great pantry, this’ll be a no-brainer.

Once you’ve made the sauce you can really add it to anything: as a dipping sauce for focaccia, spooned over chicken, shrimp, fish, beef, or pork, tossed with roasted or steamed veggies, fluffed into rice, or stirred into bean dishes. Basically, this sauce can do anything.