Slurping Up Scallion Sauce
Executive summary: I have been making heaps of this ginger scallion sauce in the past few weeks, as it’s so simple but receives such a welcome reception from my 6yo, who otherwise would not touch ginger or scallion (or anything nearly so “spicy”) with a 100-foot pole.
Both of my kids are relatively picky eaters (I wrote a whole post about it here), and I believe that some part of it is psychological. For instance, my 2yo daughter will readily eat some foods if we’re on the move, but refuses to touch the same thing while seated for a meal. Meanwhile, my 6yo son generally only eats pale bland foods and complains about stuff being “spicy” (meaning “flavorful”), but he randomly likes a few strong-tasting foods. Usually, he’s so sensitive that he will refuse to eat waffles if there’s a dusting of powdered sugar, refuse pasta if there’s a single sprig of green garnish perched on top, refuse toast if it’s touched butter, refuse chicken tenders if it’s breaded the wrong way (I don’t even know what that way is), etc. etc. And yet, he likes braised beef noodle soup, herb-crusted steak, BBQ-flavored potato chips, and this ginger scallion sauce that my mom makes. The last item is what I’m writing about today, this sauce that he eats by the spoonful (bowlful, really) and made up of “spicy” ingredients he would neeever consider ingesting in his regular diet: ginger and scallion. I’m so thrilled that I asked my mom for the recipe so I can always have a bowl of the sauce on hand. It’s soooo simple, with only four ingredients (ginger, scallion, salt, oil), and goes with so many foods. My mom first learned of it as an accompaniment to plain chicken, but I quickly discovered that it’s delicious on rice, pasta, bread, shortrib, you name it. My son now doesn’t want to eat rice if it’s not drenched in this sauce, and I don’t even care how much olive oil he must be drinking if it means that he’s getting ginger and scallion into his system, which I had thought impossible to do!
This flavorful ginger and scallion sauce is eagerly slurped up my bland-food-loving-son. I would’ve never thought it possible!
What’s the recipe? Easy. It’s just about adjusting the proportions to suit your taste. To make enough sauce to last my son for a week, which I’d estimate is about half a quart, I need:
8 bunches of scallions (admittedly, I discard most of the white base/stem, as the green parts/stalks produce the softer texture I’m aiming for)
0.5-1oz of ginger, depending on if you want a stronger or lighter ginger taste (I eyeball it as a 1-2” knob of ginger after removing the skin)
Enough olive oil (or whatever oil you like) to sauté the ingredients in and keep everything moist, but not so much that the sauce becomes super runny. I’d estimate it at 4 fl oz
4 teaspoons of salt
The only directions are:
Chop the scallions – you don’t want to be eating big chunks, but it also doesn’t need to be super fine. Up to personal preference.
Mince or grate the ginger until it’s practically a paste, as it integrates better that way (instead of getting discernable chunks of ginger in the sauce, which will likely taste too strong when you bite down on a piece).
Throw it all in a pot and add salt. Err on the lighter side at first, then add more salt as needed.
Sauté everything on low heat in (olive) oil until the scallion is totally soft, or as mellow-tasting as you like. It really cooks down over the course of 10-15 minutes, so that huge pile of scallions you started with is now just a modest bowl of sauce that (in our family) disappears almost as quickly as I can make it.
You know what they say: Give a kid a bowl of sauce and you feed him for a week. Teach a kid to make sauce and he’ll do it himself and release his parents from this task forever!
(Such wishful thinking on my part)
One word of warning I will sound is: do not attempt to use ground ginger powder as a substitute for freshly minced ginger. My MIL experimented with it, but it did not yield the correct taste or texture. Sorry, no shortcuts! This recipe is simply about having the patience to wash and chop $20 worth of scallions (at $2.50 a bunch for the organic version, I’m on track to spend $80 a month on scallions alone) and to mince that ginger until you have arm muscles to rival a lopsided Hulk’s. Alternately, my friend points out that grating the ginger might be the easier route, but I’m too minimalist to own a grater, so instead I get a workout in the kitchen every week. How efficient!