You can make this year-round to dress any green veggie like broccoli, beans, asparagus and swiss chard, but traditionally, it is a spinach dish. It’s great served as a chilled or room temperature side dish and I was most familiar with it as part of the summer cookout menu. Seasonings like mirin/sake and miso vary but if you like tahini, you’ll love this recipe:
- 1 bunch of spinach
- 3 Tbsp toasted white sesame seeds
- 1½ Tbsp soy sauce
- 1 Tbsp sugar
- ½ tsp sake
- ½ tsp mirin
Detailed instructions on spinach and sesame seed preparation:
https://www.justonecookbook.com/spinach-with-sesame-sauce/
Gma history: When I first watched her making this dressing, things like ground, toasted sesame seeds and pastes like tahini were not available at Star Market. She would do that work herself, carefully toasting the sesame seeds in a cast iron pan, and then grind them while they were still warm in a special bowl called a Suribachi. The smell was heavenly!! That was a very special bowl in her kitchen so when it broke, it was a tragedy to me – like a good friend had died. The bowl was replaced by a specially dedicated coffee grinder which was a big thing at the time. Eventually, I found a replacement Suribachi for her, but I know it wasn’t the same. It was smaller, didn’t have the beautiful glazing and didn’t have that well-used “patina” to it.
Fresh spinach bunches were also not readily available at super markets when I was growing up so on occasion she’d resort to frozen spinach. In her opinion, since the spinach was being boiled, drained and squeezed, most of the nutritional value of the vegetable was already going down the drain. It was still delicious which is a testament to the preparation of gomaae.