Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking (26 page)

11 oz (300g) baby bok choy or other greens of your choice

1¾ cups (450ml) stock, the richer the better (see headnote)

Salt

1 tbsp cooking oil

Ground white pepper

Trim the baby bok choy if necessary. Bring a panful of water to a boil. Heat the stock in a small pan.

Add 1 tsp salt and the oil to the boiling water. Add the bok choy and blanch briefly until barely cooked. Drain and set aside.

Season the stock to taste with salt and pepper. Add the bok choy and return to a boil. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the vegetables to your serving dish or bowl. Pour the stock over the vegetables and serve.

VARIATION

Baby bok choy in superior stock, restaurant style

Blanch the bok choy as in the main recipe and lay it in your serving bowl. Heat 1–2 tbsp oil in a seasoned wok over a high flame. Add any or all of the following: 1 hard-boiled salted duck egg, cut into segments or chopped coarsely; 1 preserved duck egg, cut into segments or chopped coarsely; a few raw large shrimp, chopped coarsely; a couple of mushrooms, sliced or coarsely chopped. Stir-fry briefly, then add the hot stock, return to a boil and season with salt and pepper to taste. Ladle the stock and other ingredients over your waiting vegetables and serve.

STIR-FRIED CHOY SUM WITH GINGER AND GARLIC
CHAO CAI XIN
家常炒菜心

Choy sum, with its slender, juicy stalks, is easy to stir-fry without a preliminary blanching: all you really need to do in the wok is heat the stalks through and wilt the leaves. This simple method is typical of home cooking in southern China. You can use the same method to cook spinach, or other greens of your choice, blanching them first if you wish.

10 oz (275g) choy sum

2 tbsp cooking oil

2 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced

⅓ oz (10g) ginger, peeled and sliced

¼ tsp sugar

Salt

Wash the choy sum, then cut into chopstickable sections about 2½ in (6cm) long, keeping the stalks and the leafy parts separate.

Heat a seasoned wok over a high flame. Add the oil, then the garlic and ginger. Stir-fry briefly until you can smell their aromas. Tip the choy sum stalks into the wok and stir-fry until they are hot. Then add the leaves and continue to stir-fry until the stems are tender and the leaves wilted.

Finally, add a tablespoonful of water with the sugar, and salt to taste, stir a few times and serve.

STIR-FRIED CHOPPED CHOY SUM
BO BO CAI XIN
鉢鉢菜心

This is one of those deceptively simple Chinese dishes, and an illustration of the way that a minor variation in cooking method can bring out an entirely different side to the same stir-fried ingredient. Here, the choy sum is blanched, fine-chopped and dry-fried before any seasonings are added; in the finished dish, the leaves are sleek and juicy and wonderfully enlivened by the garlic, ginger and chilli. It’s the kind of dish you might find served in a rough clay bowl, in a restaurant specializing in rustic cooking, which is why its Chinese name,
bo bo cai xin
, means “clay bowl choy sum.”

You can add a little ground pork or chicken to intensify the flavor if you wish: just follow the first two paragraphs of the recipe, then sizzle the meat in the wok until it has changed color and separated before adding the garlic and ginger.

Salt

1½ tbsp cooking oil, plus more for blanching and for seasoning the wok

13 oz (375g) choy sum

1 tbsp finely chopped fresh red chilli

1 tsp finely chopped ginger

1 tsp finely chopped garlic

½ tsp sesame oil

1–2 tbsp chilli oil (optional)

Bring a large panful of water to a boil. Add some salt and a small dash of cooking oil. Add the choy sum and blanch for about 30 seconds to wilt the leaves. Refresh immediately under the cold tap and squeeze out as much water as possible. Chop the choy sum finely and evenly.

Heat a dry wok over a high flame. Add the chopped choy sum and stir it to release any excess water as steam. As the choy sum loses its water, add the chilli and a good pinch of salt. Continue to stir until the surface of the wok is no longer moist and the steam is rising more slowly, then remove the choy sum from the wok and set aside.

Use a thick wad of paper towels to rub the surface of the wok with cooking oil and heat over a high flame to re-season. Then pour in the 1½ tbsp cooking oil, swirl it around, then add the ginger and garlic and stir-fry briefly until you can smell their fragrances.

Add the choy sum and stir-fry to incorporate, seasoning with salt to taste. When everything is hot and smells wonderful, remove from the heat, stir in the sesame oil and the chilli oil, if using, and serve.

BOK CHOY WITH FRESH SHIITAKE
XIANG GU XIAO BAI CAI
香菇小白菜

Shiitake mushrooms, commonly known in Chinese as “fragrant mushrooms,” have a rich, savory flavor that can enhance the taste of other foods, such as the fresh bok choy in this recipe. For an even more intense flavor, use dried shiitake mushrooms, which should be soaked in hot water for 30 minutes to soften. Rinse them, cover with fresh water, bring to a boil and simmer for at least 20 minutes with a dash of Shaoxing wine, some crushed ginger and spring onion and salt to taste. Leave them to steep in the liquid until you want them.

11 oz (300g) bok choy

6 fresh shiitake mushrooms

¼ tsp sugar

½ tsp potato flour mixed with 1 tbsp water

Salt

3½ tbsp cooking oil

3 garlic cloves, sliced

An equivalent amount of ginger, peeled and sliced

Wash the bok choy, then cut each head lengthways into quarters. Slice off and discard the mushroom stalks and halve the caps. Combine the sugar with the potato flour mixture.

Bring some water to a boil in a saucepan (1 quart/1 liter will do), add ½ tsp salt and ½ tbsp oil, then blanch the bok choy and mushrooms briefly, just until the bok choy leaves have wilted. Drain and shake dry.

Add the remaining 3 tbsp of oil to a seasoned wok over a high flame, swirl it around, then add the garlic and ginger and stir a few times until you can smell their fragrances. Add the blanched mushrooms and bok choy and stir a few times. Finally, add the potato flour mixture with salt to taste, give everything a good stir and serve.

VARIATIONS

The same method can be used to cook all kinds of greens, including choy sum (cut into chopstickable sections), baby bok choy, Shanghai green bok choy, or Chinese leaf cabbage (cut into thick slices).

CHINESE BROCCOLI IN GINGER SAUCE
JIANG ZHI JIE LAN
薑汁芥藍

Chinese broccoli is more like the variety sold in our supermarkets as “brocolini” than the familiar, floreted broccoli or calabrese. It has long, deep green stems, dark leaves and scanty green flower buds. Its flavor has a delicate hint of bitterness and it is particularly good blanched and stir-fried with ginger, as here. I learned this method in the kitchen of the late, great cookbook writer Yan-kit So, at a dinner party where she served it with a sumptuous steamed turbot scattered with preserved winter greens. When I make it, I always think of her.

If you are cooking quite a few dishes, this recipe is a blessing because the broccoli can be blanched an hour or more ahead of time: just make sure you undercook it in this case, so it won’t be overdone by the time it’s finally heated through for serving. In Cantonese restaurants, they usually thicken the juices with potato flour at the end of the cooking, so they cling to the broccoli stems like a sauce, but if you are not aiming for a professional finish, there is no need to do this at home.

¾ lb (350g) Chinese broccoli

Salt

4 tbsp cooking oil

2 tbsp finely chopped ginger

1 tbsp Shaoxing wine

½ tsp sugar

1 tsp potato flour mixed with 1 tbsp cold water (optional)

Bring a large panful of water to a boil (a generous 2½ quarts/2½ liters will do).

Wash and trim the Chinese broccoli. If the lower parts of the stems are thick and fibrous, peel away their outer skin with a potato peeler.

When the water is boiling, add 1 tbsp salt and 1 tbsp oil, then the Chinese broccoli. Blanch it for a minute or two to “break its rawness.” The stems should be just tender, but still crisp. If you are stir-frying them immediately, simply drain the broccoli stems and shake dry in a colander; if you want to serve them later, refresh the stems under a cold tap to arrest cooking before draining well.

When you wish to serve the broccoli, add the remaining oil to a seasoned wok over a high flame, swirl it around, then add the ginger and sizzle briefly until you can smell its fragrance. Splash in the Shaoxing wine and add the sugar. Add the broccoli and stir-fry, adding salt to taste, until it is piping hot. (If you are using broccoli blanched earlier, then cooled, you will need to pour 2–3 tbsp water or stock into the wok and cover it, so the stems reheat thoroughly.)

Remove the stems from the wok and lay them neatly on a serving dish. If you wish to thicken the juices, give the potato flour mixture a stir and add just enough, in stages, to thicken the sauce to a clingy consistency; then pour the sauce over the broccoli and serve. If you do not wish to thicken the juices, simply pour them and the ginger over the broccoli.

CHINESE CABBAGE WITH VINEGAR
CU LIU BAI CAI
醋溜白菜

Chinese cabbage has a mild flavor, with just a hint of mustardy sharpness and, after cooking, a delightfully juicy texture. The following is a Sichuanese version of a simple but satisfying supper dish that is made in many parts of China, in which brown rice vinegar lends its mellow fragrance to the greens. The vinegar is added at the end of the cooking time, to preserve its aroma.

The name of the dish reminds me of a song, to the tune of “Happy Birthday,” which my Sichuanese friends Zhou Yu and Tao Ping sung to me once on my birthday in Chengdu:
hancai baicai tudou! Hancai baicai tudou!
It sounds a bit like the words to “Happy Birthday,” but means “Amaranth, Chinese cabbage, potatoes! Amaranth, Chinese cabbage, potatoes!”