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Prep time
1 minute
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Cook time
4 minutes
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Serves
1
Author Notes
This Little Gem lettuce salad is sweet, bitter, salty, funky, crunchy, and vegetal all at once. It's the dish I make when my body is craving vegetables, or when I'm waiting for the stew to finish cooking, or when I wake up feeling terrible and need a base for a couple fried eggs. The spiky fish sauce vinaigrette flavors everything from the lettuce and radishes to the sunny-side up eggs, whose golden centers ooze into the vegetables, almost creating an emulsion. A side of crusty bread would be nice here, but more often than not I just eat this straight out of the mixing bowl sitting in front of the television. It's a great side salad, quick lunch, or light pre-dinner for when you have just five minutes to spare. —Eric Kim
Test Kitchen Notes
Featured in: A Dish for When You Want to Feel Better. —The Editors
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Ingredients
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Olive oil
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2
large organic eggs
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1
head Little Gem lettuce, cut into bite-size pieces
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1
handful fresh mint leaves
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4
radishes, thinly sliced
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1 tablespoon
rice vinegar
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1 tablespoon
fish sauce, plus more for seasoning eggs
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1 tablespoon
sesame oil
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1
fat pinch sugar
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Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Directions
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In a nonstick skillet, heat olive oil and fry the eggs sunny-side up. I like to cover them with a lid in the last few seconds to get rid of the slimy, oogery-boogery parts.
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Meanwhile, place the Little Gem lettuce, mint leaves, and radishes in a salad bowl. Add the vinegar, fish sauce, sesame oil, sugar, and black pepper. Toss with your hands.
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Plate the salad if you wish, or (as I often do) eat straight out of the bowl. Don't forget to top the salad with those fried eggs, which you can season lightly with more fish sauce.
Eric Kim was the Table for One columnist at Food52. He is currently working on his first cookbook, KOREAN AMERICAN, to be published by Clarkson Potter in 2022. His favorite writers are William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, and Ernest Hemingway, but his hero is Nigella Lawson. You can find his bylines at The New York Times, where he works now as a writer. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @ericjoonho.
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