Quay Po Cooks: baby bok choy

Showing posts with label baby bok choy. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Stir fry baby bok choy with almond - an appropriate side dish for Chinese New Year

There are so many variation in cooking baby bok choy. Here is another variation. Quick, simple yet delicious and healthy. This makes a lovely vegetable dish for Chinese New Year if you are looking for one. Since almonds signify goods of life, it is an appropriate dish to include for the celebration.

Ingredients:

350 gm baby bok choy

¼ cup almond, chopped

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp chopped garlic

½ cube bullion chicken stock

¼ tsp sesame oil

¼ tsp ground white pepper

¾ cup water

Method:

Dissolve bullion chicken stock in ¾ cup warm water and set aside. Heat oil in wok and sauté garlic till fragrant. Add almond and stir fry till they a golden brown. Add bok choy , chicken stock and stir fry till bok choy is limb . Add sesame oil and ground white pepper and mix well. Transfer to serving plate and serve hot.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Stir fry baby bok choy with dried shrimps and yam - Featured in Group Recipes

It is very hard to come by a good piece of yam, one that is very starchy. When you see one, it is like striking a lottery. Caution: Yams, unlike sweet potatoes, are toxic so don’t eat it raw. Cooking helps to destroy its toxin. There are many variations of cooking yam but seldom with green leafy vegetables. The flavor of this dish is unique and unpronounced.

Ingredients:

300 gm yam, cut into small cubes

400 gm baby bak choy

20 gm dried shrimps

1 tb vegetable oil

1 ts chopped garlic

1 cube bullion chicken stock

3 cups water

1 ts ground white pepper

2 tb fish sauce

Method:

Dissolve a cube of bullion chicken stock in 3 cups of warm water and set aside. Wash and blanch baby bak choy in salt water. Deep in cold bath, drain and set aside. Wash and soak dried shrimps in warm water for 30 mins. Drain dried shrimps and set aside. Retain the shrimp water. Steam yam for 25 mins. Heat oil in wok and sauté dried shrimps till it is soft. Add yam, fish sauce and chicken stock. Reduce heat to medium and let it simmer till yam is very soft and gravy reduced. Add baby bak choy and mix well for about 2 mins. Transfer to serving plate and serve hot.

A LITTLE ABOUT THIS QUAY PO

Before I was married to my "Quay Lo" (Guaylo) husband, I did not know how to bake or cook. Subsequently I learned some baking and cooking Western cuisine from him, and providing his food for him launched an interest in cooking in general. Many of my Chinese friends and family told me that "Quay" is the wrong spelling for devil in Cantonese. The right spelling should be "Kwai" or "Guay". Well, somehow I like the spelling "Quay" better although I have to agree that it does not sound very Cantonese. Try asking a Westerner to pronounce "Kwai" and you will probably hear "Quay" haha. Whether is "Quay" or "Kwai" or "Guay, just know the devil woman is me when you see Quay Po Cooks. My hubby said if people pronounce "Quay" as "Key" is even better because I am the key to his heart. LOL!

Only now, have I started to learn the traditional Cantonese cuisine of my Mum. She cooks fabulously and all her specialties are divine. These two interests, my husband's Western food, and my mother's traditional food, prompted me to document them so they will not be lost.

Here, I wish to share my cooking and baking experience with my readers. I also hope to inspire those who do not know how to cook or bake to do so because, trust me, if I can, you can too.

Something I'd like to mention is that I find that many people are rather unwilling to share their recipes. However, for me, I think differently. I think good recipes should be shared thus allowing as many people to enjoy it as possible. Unless those recipes are for doing business, I don't see why we want to keep them all to ourselves. So if you are generous in sharing your recipes, you are welcome to share on my blog. Send the recipes to me and better still with pictures of the final products and I will be very happy to post them them with credits to you of course.

Our cuisine is a deeply embedded part of our culture. When two cultures come together under the same roof the results in the kitchen can sometimes be comedic, sometimes confrontational, but more often it is a journey full of surprises and discovery. There is joy in our food. If we think upon this, it is intuitively obvious. This blog is a journey of joy and sharing, reflecting what the French like to call "joie de vivre" (joy of living). No one could be more different from one another then my husband and my mother. Yet one thing they share in common is knowing intuitively that food, cooking, and sharing can be avenues of joy in life itself. So herein, help yourself, to a little joy and , if you like it, share it with your own family and friends. Joy is something that should be shared.