Cajun-Asian Salad

Today I harvested a huge Chinese cabbage from my garden and used it to create a simple salad with a South Louisiana flair. The greens are show-stoppers all by themselves, so the only part of this that would be considered "cooking" is the salad dressing--a really simple recipe that has canned fig syrup as its star ingredient. (Every refrigerator in South Louisiana has an open jar of figs on one of the shelves, or, if you are as lucky as I am, there is a jar completely filled with fig syrup that was left over after all of the summer's figs were canned.)

Salad:

1 Chinese cabbage, leaves thoroughly washed, stacked, and cut into ribbons (remove hard stems before cutting and save stems for a dish like stir-fry)

1 cup toasted pecans

1/2 cup chopped green onions

freshly ground black pepper

Dressing:

2 T. balsamic vinegar

6 T. olive oil

3 T. fig syrup

1 T. Dijon mustard

Seasoning (salt, pepper, your favorite dried or fresh herbs)

Whisk all ingredients together until emulsified. If oil is still separate after whisking, add a little more Dijon mustard and continue whisking until desired consistency is reached.