Rob Cheng’s Blog

One of my favorite Chinese vegetables in Bok Choy. I like to put it in soups, and many Chinese recipes. Unlike many other vegetables, both the leaves and the stems are tasty in their own unique way. Perhaps, one of the best Bok Choy dishes is beef/chicken with oyster sauce. I was having a problem that each time I cooked this dish, the dish would turn out very runny, and the delicious oyster sauce was diluted. After many starts and stops, I finally figured out some of the intricacies of cooking with Bok Choy.
I’ll use Beef Bok Choy with Oyster Sauce as an example.

Cut the bok choy and separate the leaves and the stems into two piles. Cut the beef into small round pieces. Beat each piece of beef individually with a meat tenderizer. This is a key step to make the beef extra tender and more flavorful. Create the marinade for the beef. I use one tablespoon cooking sherry, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 2 tablespoon cornstarch, 1 tablespoon sugar, and a dash of Accent. Note: This recipe, I have doubled the amount of cornstarch to compensate for the runoff of the bok choy.

Once the oil in the wok is very hot, throw the bok choy stem pieces in the wok, and also 2-3 cloves of mashed garlic. Stir vigorously for one minute. Then add the bok choy leaves to the mixture. Stir until the leaves have been cooked. Remove and place the bok choy stems and leaves in a strainer. This is a key step. The key point is to strain off as much liquid as possible.

Next, heat some more oil, and quick fry the beef in the wok. Once the beef is quick, throw the bok choy and 1-2 tablespoons oyster sauce, and mix quickly. Don’t spend too much time mixing because you don’t want to overcook the beef and the bok choy.

In summary the two key differences in cooking with Bok Choy and other Chinese vegetables:

1. Strain in a strainer
2. Add a second TBSP of corn starch into the meat marinade.

Good Luck.

Next, you need to add the marinade for your beef or chicken. Add one more teaspoon of corn starch to the marinade than normal. The reason is that the extra corn starch is required for the run off of the water from the bok choy.

Now cook the bok choy in the wok. Watch carefully the bok choy, and do not over cook the bok choy because the more it is cooked the more run off. Once the bok choy

September 28th, 2008 | Category: Recipes | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL