Umeboshi sauce noodle bowl
Put it on everything
Hello lovely readers! Welcome to today’s Stories from Catbird Cottage. Spring is springing all over the place. It is dazzling to behold, particularly here on our landscape: numerous billowy forsythias, reliable daffodils, nodding hellebores, our serviceberry, epimedium (aka spaceship flowers) and so much more. Which brings me to an important note for all you wild food fans: Now is the perfect time to make this field garlic Caesar salad. The link brings you to in-depth coverage about how to properly identify this common wild ingredient. Harvest away and eat deliciously!
Today’s recipe features another wonderfully punchy dressing: enter lush, zippy umeboshi sauce.
With so many tender, wild foods fresh-on-the scene, we have launched our debut supper club, happening tomorrow! A few days ago I went out foraging stinging nettles for the menu, looking so fine and tender at this moment, and bringing into focus once again how lucky I am to live like this. Dinner will be a rollicking 4-course feast, featuring - amongst other things - the sought-after handmade cecamariti from my book (p. 157 ). This version will be tossed through plenty of brown butter and served with ramps, nettles, and crispy sunflower seeds. The dessert I’ve developed - which I am bursting to share - will be in the next paid newsletter. Stay tuned!
If you’d like to join us for our next popup supper club on May 25th, send a reply or email me and we’ll reserve your spot. Attendees from previous dinners get first dibs to upcoming feasts - so tickets usually go quick - but I’m always interested to bring new people into the mix and create a richer experience. These events are always intimate (and very lively), and they bring a piece of humanity to all of us.
A few years ago I was searching for a new way to commemorate the Lunar New Year and landed on the Prosperity Salad. I can’t tell you how much fun it was to gather some of my favorite colorful ingredients and channel pantry staples into new, exciting roles. The idea began with “plum sauce”. But because I generally prefer savory, I decided to make a similar - but different - version, using umeboshi preserved plums as my starting point. Once assembled and the punchy sauce is poured over all, this salad has you enthusiastically toss it with loved ones, to encourage a prosperous year, of course. This is playing with food I fully support.
Fast forward to today’s recipe. The fervor elicited by the original salad required a follow-back: to reconnect to the sauce and explore new and delicious ways with it. I can attest, it is great on just about anything. The dense, sour and salty plums add depth and texture. There are some predictable elements such as sesame oil and soy sauce, brightly offset by ume vinegar (same plum) and some fresh orange juice. Inky date syrup brings a background-sweetening layer to bring it all together.
The rainbow noodle bowl is as versatile as you want to make it. As long as you have several crunchy ingredients, an allium, and a protein - united by the sauce - your noodle bowl will shine. In this version I’ve used watermelon radish, green beans, carrots, cucumber, shrimp, scallions, chilis, and peanuts, plus a generous handful of basil and cilantro. You could opt to use bean sprouts, broccoli, peppers, snow peas, grilled chicken, and seared mushrooms, or a riff with fried tofu, water chestnuts, radishes, cucumber, cabbage, and asparagus, etc etc - the ideas are endless. Any of these combinations, united by the sauce, will bring a deeply savory, zippy quality to anything it touches.
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