Crunchy, mildly sweet, and lightly spicy, this is a lovely little salad I learned in Kyoto. If you can find myoga—a lily root that looks something like garlic and is sold at some Asian markets—use it instead of the onion. Like onion, it’s spicy and peppery; unlike onion, if you eat too much of it, you forget everything— or so I was told.

　　

Ingredients

makes 4 servings

　　Salt

　　1 large red onion, thinly sliced and separated into rings

　　1 thin-skinned (English) cucumber

　　1 whole boneless, skinless chicken breast, 1/2 to 3/4 pound

　　1/2 cup sake

　　2 tablespoons rice or other mild vinegar

　　1 tablespoon sugar

　　1 tablespoon soy sauce

　　

Step 1

Put 1 tablespoon salt in a bowl of cold water and stir; add the onion. Rub the cucumber with salt, but do not peel it. Slice it thinly (a mandoline is ideal for this), put it in a colander, and sprinkle it lightly with salt. Combine the chicken and sake in a shallow bowl or deep plate and steam over hot water until cooked, about 10 minutes.

　　

Step 2

Drain and rinse the onion. Rinse the cucumber and wring the slices dry in a towel. Reserve the chicken-cooking liquid; shred the chicken.

　　

Step 3

Combine the onion, chicken, and cucumber in a bowl. Combine the vinegar, sugar, soy sauce, and 2 tablespoons of the chicken-cooking liquid and dress the salad with this. Serve within an hour, at room temperature.

　　The Best Recipes in the World by Mark Bittman. © 2005 by Mark Bittman. Published by Broadway Books. All Rights Reserved.MARK BITTMAN is the author of the blockbuster The Best Recipes in the World (Broadway, 2005) and the classic bestseller How to Cook Everything, which has sold more than one million copies. He is also the coauthor, with Jean-Georges Vongerichten, of Simple to Spectacular and Jean-Georges: Cooking at Home with a Four-Star Chef. Mr. Bittman is a prolific writer, makes frequent appearances on radio and television, and is the host of The Best Recipes in the World, a 13-part series on public television. He lives in New York and Connecticut.