I was planning on sharing my favorite Thai soup recipe this week, but the temperature is approaching 100 degrees where I live, and heatstroke edging isn’t a fetish of mine. So instead I fooled around in my kitchen with some cabbage and red onion, per my taco-topping suggestion last week. I whipped up a sesame ginger dressing with enough kick that the onions won’t need a separate pickling. All I had on hand today was green cabbage, but this slaw would be even kickier if you went half and half and used 2 cups of the red.

Lively up your taco with this, or serve it as a little sumpin-sumpin on the side.

Ingredients

• 4 cups shredded green (and red) cabbage
• 1 tsp sesame seeds (optional)
• 1/4 red onion, thinly sliced
• juice of 1 lime
• 1 clove garlic, crushed or minced
• 2 T rice vinegar
• 2 T tamari or soy sauce
• 1 T tahini
• 1 T maple syrup
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger

Toast the sesame seeds in a dry frying pan (I use cast iron) until golden brown and set aside. Combine the lime, garlic, vinegar, tamari, tahini, maple syrup and ginger in a small bowl and whisk together. Place the sliced onions in the bowl and let them marinate for about 15 minutes. Add the onions and dressing to the shredded cabbage and sesame seeds in a larger bowl and toss until the cabbage is well coated. Chill until ready to serve. Serves about 4. (Be sure to use it within a day or so as the vinegar will start to immediately saturate and break down the cabbage.)