There's a Fresh Green That's Ready to Be Caesar'd

"No salad is more resilient than the Caesar, owing as much to its literal sturdiness as the flexibility that allows it to take all sorts of new forms: with kale or little gem, fortified with grilled chicken or salmon, turned into a wrap. The key tenets are creaminess, saltiness, and crunch. When chef Jessica Lee-An was developing a salad for the menu at Sae Ron, a modern Korean restaurant on the Lower East Side,"

"Grandma cooked them - in a stew or hot pot, or blanched and dressed as a banchan - but the former Gramercy Tavern pastry chef wanted to represent both her Korean upbringing and American tastes, so her chrysanthemum Caesar salad at Sae Ron is an airy mound of frondlike chrysanthemum greens tossed in a classic anchovy-laced dressing before it's topped with a snowfall of shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano and crumbles of toasted black quinoa and fried sunflower seeds."

Chrysanthemum greens are being used raw in salads by Asian American chefs, despite traditional East Asian norms favoring cooking leafy greens. At Sae Ron, a chrysanthemum Caesar combines frondlike greens with an anchovy-laced dressing, shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano, toasted black quinoa, and fried sunflower seeds to provide creaminess, saltiness, and crunch. The greens have herbaceous, parsley-like flavor with a hint of cilantro and grassy, peppery notes. Eating chrysanthemum greens raw contrasts with their conventional role as hot-pot and banchan ingredients. Chefs with childhood memories of chrysanthemum in sukiyaki recall the greens being cooked in bubbling pots.

Read at Grub Street