My favourite way to cook bok choy is with a lovely shiny, ginger sauce.
Great way to load up on leafy Asian greens quickly and easily!
On the table in 5 minutes, serve over fluffyriceor over noodles insoup.
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Its just a really tasty, quick way to cook up a big load of leafy Asian greens.
Its a staple vegetable dish on the menu of everyday Chinese restaurants.
Saucy is the key!That ginger sauce will make any vegetable scoff-able.
The Chinese are very clever cooks!
Bok Choy (or other Asian greens!)
I classify them baby up to around 17cm/7 long.
unless you cut the leafy part from the stem.
Other Asian greens
The cooking method in this recipe works great for pretty much any Asian greens.
You just need to tweak the steaming time to suit the one youre using.
And heres how to cut each of these types of Asian greens for this recipe.
For the longer ones, just cut into pieces as long or short as you want.
For smaller ones, keep the leaves whole!
Sauce
The sauce is a classic Chinese stir fry sauce that is nice and shiny.
Its fairly light in colour compared to other stir fry sauces which is common at Chinese restaurants.
It suits vegetable dishes we dont want to weigh down leafy greens with overly salty, intensely flavoured sauces.
But, let me be clear, this sauce is definitely not bland!!
Its an excellent, tasty rice-soaking sauce!
Default sesame oil sold in Australia is toasted, untoasted is harder to find.
Soy sauce Use either light or all purpose soy sauce.
But not dark soy sauce flavour is too strong and the colour is too intense!
More on which soy sauce to use whenhere.
Cornflour / cornstarch Thickens the stir fry sauce and also makes it shiny!
Flour, on the other hand, doesnt make sauces shiny.
Food trivia for the day!
But I promise switching a pinch of white pepper for black pepper willnotruin your dish!!
But my favourite way is to combine both pan-roasting and steaming.
The sauce is poured in at the end and literally takes 30 seconds to thicken!
Sauce Mix the cornflour/cornstarch with everythingexcept the wateruntil lump free, then mix in the water.
Because its easier to dissolve cornflour in less liquid.
If theres too much liquid, you end up with pesky cornflour lumps.
Saute gingerin the oil for a minute to soften and also to flavour the oil.
The ginger wont cook much further once everything else is added.
TIP:Start the ginger in a cold pan to extend the oil-infusion time!
Toss bok choyin the pan for about 15 seconds to coat it in the gingery oil.
Water Then pour over 1/4 cup of water.
This will create the steam to cook the bok choy.
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45 second steam Place the lid on then steam for just 45 seconds until the stem is partially cooked.
Bok choy cooks really, really quickly!
Doneness The stem should still have a soft crunch to it, but not be crisp like when raw.
If its soft all the way through, it turns into mush.
Sauce Give the sauce a quick stir to mix in any cornflour settled on the bottom.
How quick was that?
Just transfer the bok choy and every drop of that delicious sauce onto a serving plate then serve!
Serving
The obvious role for this plate of tasty vegetable goodness is as a side dish.
But I exaggerate not when I say that Ill happily have this as a meal, just by itself.
Proof above.Look at that ginger-sauce-rice-soaking situation!!
!Try telling me thats not meal worthy!
