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5 from 1 vote
Hero shot of Baby Mustard Greens and Tuna Salad.
Baby Mustard Greens and Tuna Salad
Prep Time
5 mins
Cook Time
5 mins
Total Time
10 mins
 

This is a quick and easy salad that fills you up. Mixed with canned tuna and sliced tofu skin, which add extra dimensions to the texture, Baby Mustard Greens and Tuna Salad makes it easy to eat a lot of green leaves. The salad is dressed in just sesame oil, light soy sauce and a bit of mayonnaise.

Don't forget to see the section 'MEAL IDEAS' below the recipe card! It gives you a list of dishes that I have already posted and this recipe that can make up a complete meal. I hope it is of help to you.

Recipe Type: Salad, Side
Cuisine: Japanese
Keyword: canned tuna, gai choy, mustard greens, tuna salad
Serves: 2
Author: Yumiko
Ingredients (tbsp=15ml, cup=250ml)
  • 200g/7.1oz baby mustard greens (note 1)
  • 10g/0.4oz dried tofu skin sheet , cut to 5cm/2" long x 5mm/3/16" wide strips (note 2)
  • 65g/2.3oz canned tuna chunks in spring water , drained (note 3)
  • 1 tbsp sesame oil
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 tsp mayonnaise (note 4)
  • A pinch of pepper (optional)
Instructions
  1. Soak the tofu skin strips in water for 5 minutes to rehydrate, then drain.
  2. Bring water in a large pot to a boil. Add a pinch of salt (not in ingredients) and put the mustard greens in, ensuring that all leaves are submerged in the water.

  3. When the water starts boiling again (note 3), drain and add cold water to the pot with the leaves to quickly cool them down.

  4. Rinse each stem with running water to clean the root end of the clusters as they tend to accumulate soil.
  5. Align all the stems with root side on the right (for right handers). Cut at the beginning of the root and discard the root bits. Starting from the root end, cut the leaves to 5cm long pieces.

  6. Take a handful of chopped leaves at a time, squeeze and drain water and transfer them to a mixing bowl.

  7. Squeeze water out of the rehydrated tofu skin pieces and put them into the mixing bowl.

  8. Add the tuna to the mixing bowl and mix well with other ingredients. Ensure that the pieces of mustard greens are separated (they get stuck together when the water is squeezed out) and mixed with other ingredients.

  9. Add sesame oil, soy sauce and mayonnaise. Add pepper if using and mix all ingredients well.
Recipe Notes

1. Finding Japanese mustard greens called ‘karashina’, would be the best. Baby Chinese mustard greens are very similar.

If you can only find fully grown mustard greens, that’s OK, too. Blanching time will be a bit longer due to thick stems (I blanched for 1 minute). If the stems are very thick, you may halve them vertically halfway so that the stems become thinner without separating two halves.

To avoid the soft leaf part from getting over cooked, put the stem-end of the leaves in the boiling water first, keeping the green leaves above the water for a short while, then push the leaves into the water.

Spinach, Broccolini, Chinee  broccoli or choy sum can be good alternatives too.

2. Instead of tofu skin, you can use 50g/1.8oz of blanched enoki mushrooms. Remove the stem and cut into half if too long before blanching. Cool them down and squeeze the water out before mixing to the salad.

You can also substitute tofu skin with blanched bean sprouts. Make sure to squeeze water out before adding to the mixing bowl.

3. I used the smallest canned tuna which had the net weight of 95g/3.4oz. After draining the liquid, it weighed about 65g/2.3oz.

You can use blanched chicken if you prefer. Shred it after blanching.

4. Mayonnaise gives umami to the flavour of the salad. It also makes the dressing milder. If you prefer not to use mayonnaise, you can substitute it with a pinch of salt.