{Serves 4}
You can put the lime in the coconut and eat it all up - I promise. Bok choy is at its best in the raw, as that's how it optimally retains its lovely crunch. Here it is tossed with a silky smooth coconut sauce that you'd think was decadent if it weren't raw and filled with healthy, nourishing essential fatty acids. An out-of-the-ordinary take on rice made from parsnips rounds out the meal.
The sauce makes about 1 ? cups; any remaining sauce can be saved for up to a week and tossed with vegetable noodles, served as a dip, or thinned with a little water and used to dress a salad.
Ingredients:
Sauce
½ cup coconut water or water
1 kaffir lime leaf
1 cup packed young coconut meat
¾ cup soaked raw cashews
¼ cup cold-pressed extra-virgin olive oil
¼ cup fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon raw honey (optional)
2 teaspoons fish sauce or nama shoyu
1 garlic clove
1 teaspoon sea salt
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Pinch of ground cumin
Pinch of ground turmeric
6 heads baby bok choy, or 3 heads regular bok choy
1 cup very thinly sliced shiitake mushroom caps
Parsnip "Rice"
4 small to medium parsnips, peeled
1 tablespoon cold-pressed sesame oil or extra-virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons nama shoyu
¼ teaspoon sea salt, or to taste
To make the sauce, in a high-speed blender, blend the coconut water with the lime leaf, if using, to pulverize the leaf. Add the remaining ingredients and blend until smooth and creamy.
Cut off the bottoms of the bok choy. Rinse each stalk, pat dry, and thinly slice the stalks and leaves. If the stalks are particularly thick, cut them in half lengthwise before slicing. Place the bok choy in a large bowl and add the mushrooms. Add enough sauce to coat the vegetables and toss well. Set aside to marinate for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the parsnip "rice": Combine all the ingredients in a food processor and pulse until finely ground with a fluffy, rice-like texture.
Spoon the bok choy into bowls and serve the parsnip "rice" alongside.
Timesaver
Make the sauce a day ahead and the parsnip "rice" earlier in the day, and keep both refrigerated until you're ready to use them.
