WILD MUSTARD SALAD

(Recipe in English is below. Hardal otu salatasi tarifi için burayi tiklayin)

Yet another herb that is edible in Turkey; wild mustard! It is mainly consumed in the west coast as a salad or mezze. 

wild mustard plant

It was the first time I’d make it and eat it so I was curious. The raw plant has a very bitter taste so having bought 500 grams in the supermarket, I thought “ouch!”. But luckily the taste got softer and milder as I steam-cooked it!

All the recipes I read of such edible plants talk about soaking the plants in boiling water for 3 – 4 seconds and take them out and squeezing them when they are a bit lukewarm. But being lazy to go through all these procedures, I steam-cooked the leaves that I chopped in the basket of my pressure cooker! I didn’t have to bother with warm wtaer dropping everywhere or burning myself. I think steam-cooking is the best thing you can do with edible plants if you want to keep their vitamins, minerals or their shape in tact. With wild mustard I think it took 2 - 3 minutes till they were soft; I am not sure because I was busy with chopping in the mean time :-) You will have to see it for yourself how long you have to keep them!

I steam-cooked 500 gr of wild mustard: one portion to put on the table and the rest split into two and put in the deep freeze in frefrigrator bags

Anyway; I was going to put a small plate of wild mustard salad as cold starter on the table, after having steam-cooked the plant, I kept one portion away and the rest I divided into two refrigerator bags and put them in the deep freeze. I read in one of the food magazines that the edible plants in their seasons could go into the deep freeze and keep their taste. We’ll see that!

Now, as it was the first time I worked with the wild mustard, I didn’t want to take any risks so I separated the leaves and the stems; and steam-cooked these separately as well. You can chop the plant before or after you steam-cook it.

Now time to post this very simple recipe as it is made in the west coast!

Ingredients (serves 2 – 3):

150 – 200 gr wild mustard, washed very well and steam-cooked  

2 – 3 spoons of lemon juice (or as much as you want)

2 – 3 spoons of extra virgin olive oil

Salt to your liking

Method:

1. Mix the olive oil, the lemon juice and salt into a salad dressing.
2. Take the wild mustard on a plate and pour the salad dressing over it.

wild mustard salad