White Wine Vinegar & Miso Dressing for Steamed Swiss Chard

This white wine vinaigrette dilutes the punch of vinegar with yogurt and sweetens it with honey, and because of the yogurt you don’t need a lot of oil –  just give it a splash. Actually you can be pretty loose with most of the ingredients as long as you taste it after and adjust – more honey to sweeten, more yogurt to get rid of the acidic bite of the vinegar, more miso for salt, etc. Feel free to use agave nectar or sugar instead of honey if you prefer. Also feel free to use a raspberry vinegar, apple cider vinegar, or any other flavoured vinegar.

Ingredients:
2 tbsp miso
1 tbsp white wine vinegar (or apple cider, or rice wine vinegar, or other vinegar)
3 tbsp plain yogurt (a thick yogurt is best – my favourite is Pinehedge 3.8% that comes in a returnable glass bottle)
1 tsp honey
2 cloves garlic, minced (or 1/4 tsp garlic powder. Roast the garlic if you want to get a bit fancier and smokier)
2 tsp olive oil

Directions:

First mix the miso and vinegar to get the clumps out of the miso, then add everything except the oil. You can shake it or stir it or whisk it to combine. Then add the oil in a stream as you stir to emulsify it. The vinaigrette only lasts a few days in the fridge, so use it up fast or make a half recipe.

To steam or blanch the chard: Remove the greens from the stems of the chard and chop them separately into approximately 1″ slices. That’s just for convenience and to make them bite-size. Then boil or steam the white stalks for a minute before adding the leaves for another minute (max 3 minutes – test a white stalk to see if it’s tender). Then drain the chard and run it under cold water or plunge it into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Or just turn off the heat when you add the leaves and let the pot sit covered to wilt the greens until you’re ready to serve. You kill fewer nutrients this way, but the leaves still soften.

About swiss chard: Kale is not chard. There is nothing swiss about it. That’s a very important distinction. Kale looks a bit more like lettuce, and it’s tough and bitter. Chard is sweet and smooth. Actually the white part is the tastiest and it actually tends a lot more toward the flavour of a bok choy or spinach, so you can use it any recipe calling for those. Unlike any of the choy family (pak choy, bok choy, etc.), however, you maybe wouldn’t want to smother its bland form in hoisin sauce because it’s great on its own.

This dressing also doubles as a dip for vegetables (especially carrots, mushrooms and tomatoes, or any slightly sweet vegetable), or on a green salad.