Kohlrabi, tofu and mango salad
Welcome to To Vegetables, With Love, a celebration of a vegetable life, less ordinary. Find archived recipes on my new recipe index.
My book Tenderheart is available from Books are Magic, Kitchen, Arts and Letters, Book Larder, Bold Fork Books and also here or here.
You know it’s a good day when you find kohlrabi at the market. These green or purple bulbs are a summertime gift, and hail from the same cruciferous family as cabbage, broccoli and kale. The green and purple bulbs differ only in colour, as they look and taste the same inside.
The signature of kohlrabi is their crisp flesh that is mildly sweet. For me, it is very reminiscent of broccoli stem. My daughter, in her inimitable sardonic fashion described it as a tasteless apple. This time, she did not mean it as a diss. She liked it.
This week, while at my local coop, I got talking to a lovely lady named Mallory. Mallory had beautiful tomatoes in her trolley along with gnocchi. She started to tell me about the beautiful crispy gnocchi and tomato salad from the NYT Cooking app she likes to make. At this point, I smiled and got out my phone, opened the app and pulled up the recipe. It’s my recipe, I exclaimed. Turns out, Mallory enjoys many of my recipes from NYT Cooking and also reads this newsletter - so if you’re reading this week, Hi Mallory 👋 …
I mention Mallory because I started to tell her about this week’s kohlrabi salad recipe. She said her daughter enjoys raw vegetables, which my kids do too. But then she also mentioned kohlrabi intimidates me. That is a very common reaction. It tends to happen with vegetables we don’t see a lot of at the market, and hence, there are not a lot of recipes around that feature these recipes. So to help Mallory, and the rest of you who may also be intimidated by kohlrabi, I made a little, low fi video (sorry, sound isn’t great) about how to break it down. I hope this helps.
Kohlrabi can be roasted or pan-fried, and treated similarly to a turnip. My favourite way to eat them is raw. I used them a lot during my Arthur Street Kitchen salad days, as their crunchy texture and mellow flavour proved a wonderful canvas for a punchy salad dressing. They would make an excellent substitute for green papaya in the Thai salad som tum. Here, I’ve used them in a highly textural fresh salad – the kohlrabi is fortified with lacinato kale and tofu, with mango delivering bright, fruity pops of sweetness.
Both the bulbs and the leaves are edible. If you find kohlrabi with their leafy tops, slice them up and add them to this salad.
If you can’t find kohlrabi or other ingredients in this recipe? Here are some substitution ideas:
Kohlrabi: cabbage, turnip, zucchini
Lacinato kale / cavolo nero: curly kale, chard / silverbeet, collard greens
Mango: apple, pear, plum peach, apricot, orange
A small reflection, a week after bringing home the James Beard Foundation Award for TENDERHEART. Does it feel weird to say I’m a James Beard Foundation Award Winner? Honestly, yes. Does it mean more to have won for THIS book? Again YES. This was my second nomination - my first being for TO ASIA, WITH LOVE in 2022 - and I went to this year’s awards with an unexpected feeling of serenity. I don’t know if this was because I had more experience, or I knew what to expect, or if it was because I just felt my dad’s positive energy all around me for the whole weekend, but when my name was called by Kenji Lopez-Alt, I didn’t feel a racking fear to step up on stage, I just felt at peace. To win for my 5th cookbook feels right for me. As I said during my award speech, my road to now has been unconventional. Nothing in this industry makes it easy for a Chinese woman to be seen as an expert on vegetables or salads or vegetarian cooking. But you know what got me here? YOU! It was the home cooks who welcomed me into their kitchens and cooked my recipes and shared them with their families and friends, and it was because of home cooks that the industry had to take notice. Without you all, there is simply no point in me doing what I do. I thanked you all in my official speech, but I thank you all again! This community is very special and I’m honoured to serve you all.
🥦 My cookbook, Tenderheart (including the seal below for fun!) is for cooking vegetables, all year round. Pick up your copy here. It is also mostly vegan (or vegan-izable) and gluten-free adaptable
COOK / EAT / SHARE
New to NYT Cooking this week, a veggie play on not-chinese chicken salad that requires no cooking! YAY - crunchy noodle and tofu salad.
It’s tomato dumpling salad season!
Silken tofu with spicy-soy dressing season has also commenced in my house.
Antipodeans, I got you - try this Thai curry risotto with butternut and green beans or this piquant Potato and white bean puttanesca soup.
Going to a gathering and need a last minute dessert, or need to throw together a quick teacher appreciation gift, like me? As I type, I can smell these mochi brownies in the kitchen - yum.
THIS WEEK’S RECIPE
Kohlrabi, tofu and mango salad with ginger-lime dressing
© Hetty Lui McKinnon for To Vegetables, With Love
Serves 4
extra virgin olive oil
425g (15-ounce) extra firm tofu, cut into 1.25cm (1/2 inch) slices
2 medium (about 900g / 2 pounds) purple or green kohlrabi
5-6 lacinato kale (cavolo nero) stems, leaves removed and thinly sliced
sea salt and black pepper
1 to 2 ripe mangoes, skin removed and flesh cut into thin strips
2 scallions, thinly sliced
big handful chopped cilantro/coriander
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
Ginger lime dressing
1.25cm (1/2-inch) piece ginger, peeled and grated
1 clove garlic, grated
3 tablespoons lime juice (from 1 to 2 limes)
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon tamari or soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon red chili (pepper) flakes
sea salt and black pepper
Heat a large frying pan (skillet) on medium high heat for 2 minutes. When hot, add a drizzle of olive oil and add the tofu slices. Drizzle the top with olive oil, season generously with sea salt and black pepper, and panfry until the bottom is golden, about 3 to 4 minutes. Flip them over and panfry the other side. Set aside to cool, and then slice into 1.25cm (1/2-inch) strips. Set aside to cool.
To make the dressing, place the ginger, garlic, lime juice, maple syrup, sesame oil, olive oil, tamari or soy sauce and red chili flakes into a bowl and whisk to combine. Season with sea salt and black pepper.
To prepare the kohlrabi, remove the top and bottom of the bulb and place it on one of the cut sides on a cutting board. Using a sharp knife, remove the skin. If your kohlrabi is large, cut it in half through the top so it is easier to handle. Cut the kohlrabi into thin discs, and then stack the discs and cut into matchsticks.
Place the kohlrabi into a large bowl and add the kale, season with sea salt and black pepper and add the dressing. Toss well to coat. Add the tofu and mango and gently toss, taking care not to squish the mango. Finally, add the scallion, coriander (cilantro) and sesame seeds and toss gently to combine. Taste to make sure you are happy with the seasonings.
Serve immediately or prep ahead and serve later. The kohlrabi will stay crisp but the vegetables will release liquid, so drain that off before serving.
Congratulations Hetty on your James Beard award win! I have the Tenderheart cookbook and I love it! Well done! 😀
Love the sound of this salad! Growing up in Germany, Kohlrabi was pretty common, but I only really recall two ways of eating it - raw alongside my Pausenbrot (sandwich I would take to school) or what I like to refer to as “cooked to death” and mixed with bechamel sauce (which seems to be German mothers’ trick for getting children to eat veggies - cover everything in bechamel sauce and hope for the best).
But I think Kohlrabi is best served raw! My mum loves using it in Som Tam as you suggest since it’s much easier to find and I love using it in all manner of slaws, my latest iteration being a green apple and kohlrabi slaw as an accompaniment to a savoury french toast with smoked salmon and wasabi creme fraiche situation.
Look forward to trying your salad!