#18 - Vegetables, Chinese Style

June 23rd, 2008

Chinese food looks simple to cook. There’s nothing to bake; everything is flash fried or steamed. All soup is made in front of you, even at a roadside stand. There’s separate bowls for all the ingredients; you order; they mix it all up with hot water and hand it to you. The biggest emphasis is placed on the freshness of the food, and the end result has to have as much evidence of freshness as possible. The less evidence of cooking that is present, the better the food is perceived to be. This is the “biggest must” among the many rules to follow.

The second rule is there has to be vegetables, and they have to cooked perfectly.

It looks easy to cook, and it’s an afterthought in our cuisine. It’s basically boiling and chopping. The first time, I did several things wrong. The color was wrong because I cooked it longer than necessary. I used to much oil, and ruined the broth for ‘tong’. Too much ginger, then there was not enough. I think I’ve got the whole thing down now, and I’ll present a pictorial of the feat. I still like the whole dumping a can of corn in a saucepan, but the following food has its place in my kitchen repertoire.

These are the vegetables I bought from the market in Wan Chai. I have no idea what they’re called, so I have to consult that kid’s book of vegetables I bought in Shenzhen… ah, they’re suan tai (蒜苔). Ok, Suan Tai is surprisingly oily for something so green, but it’s a great vegetable to start cooking with. It’s easy to get everything consistent as the pieces are all uniform. It’s easy to cut, and quick to cut, also. There’s little cleaning prep to be done. A good one to start with.

Cut these guys up into suitable sized chunks; about the size of a green bean. The roots are hard and I don’t like eating them, but the flowery top thing is ok to eat, and makes it look better in the end. After everything’s cut, you put the following in the saucepan: about a tablespoon of salt, about the same amount of oil, and ginger, about a finger’s worth. I missed that here, but my cooking instructor was away at the time so it didn’t matter. The amount of water is smaller than you’d expect; you want the water to quickly hit the boiling point.

This is the cruicial stage in the game here. If you ignore the other instructions and decide to put jello in the mix I’ll forgive you, but you have to do this right: The dish is DONE, as in off the stove and on a plate, when the color starts to turn slightly greener. It’s very crucial. If the vegetables start to lose their color, the vegetables are ruined and you must throw them out into street from your 30th floor apartment whilst shouting “bu hao chi de!” to anyone unfortunate enough to have poorly cooked vegetables dumped on their clothes. So watch the color. It’s the most important part. You got that?

I made some sauce because it’s a blog and it’s got to be all fancy. I think this is called teriyiaki sauce.

The end result. Notice the flower things aren’t cut off, and I’m here to write this so it’s good to eat. I cut them off the first time I cooked this, so I’m just pointing this out in case you decide to cut these off.

Eat!

Entry Filed under: Food, Uncategorized