Pak Choy

"Pak choi, sometimes called baak choi, seems to me to be perhaps the perfect vegetable, having soft, melting leaves and plump stems bursting with juice." Nigel Slater

Yesterday I bought a bundle of pak choy. It looked so fresh - crispy white stalks, dark green leaves, and moreover they were on a special - a mere $2.00. An impulse buy that I sort of knew at the time that I would regret. Because I've done this before - and written about it too - Poor shopping = dinner challenges So I shall try not to repeat myself here.

I have now trawled the net yet again and can add a little more in the way of words, general advice but not much in the way of recipes. In my earlier post I said, "Whereas I can improvise something European, Asia needs recipes." That was two years ago but I think it still holds. Well maybe I'm up to varying an actual recipe a little bit, but starting from scratch and making it up as I go along? I don't think so.

Than Truong - an Australian grower and provider of these Asian greens says:

“Always add something like oyster sauce or soy sauce ... And always stir fry with some aromatics in the oil before you add the actual greens – for example, garlic, ginger, and chilli.”

Those last three which Ottolenghi has described more than once as: 'the holy trinity'

which he used, as shown here in 'Last night's dinner was pak choi with with ginger, chilli and garlic' - although it looks as if there were some noodles in there as well. But even with a holy trinity such as that it can appear in many ways - garlic - crushed, sliced or chopped - fried or blended with the ginger - also - sliced or crushed - maybe even preserved? As for chilli - well there's an almost endless selection there, from the different types of chilli to how they are used - dried, flaked or pwdered, fresh, sliced, whole, in a sauce such as Sambal oelek, or an oil ...

So in a way, maybe I could experiment. And stir-fry seems to be the way to go:

"'Useful in a stir-fry' Is one of those cop-out sentences that make this writer's blood boil. Except in this case it is true. No other member of the greens family takes so well to the intense heat and feisty seasonings associated with this way of cooking." Nigel Slater

The pak choi for the stir-fry, can be treated in different ways. I could steam it first before frying, or boil it as Adam Liaw does - briefly, having divided it into three sections - the white base, the middle section and the leaves, adding them one after the other - just a quick blanch really. Then stir fry - well they need to dry off first. I could use it as is, but cutting it in half or quarters lengthwise. I could roughly chop the whole thing or slice it - thinly or thickly ... Because it doesn't take long to cook it whichever way you choose.

A marinade for the meat - I have chosen some pork sizzle steak - i.e. thinly sliced pork from some unnamed part of the animal. I note that lots of times there's some cornflour in those marinades, but otherwise:

"All the flavours we associate with Asian cooking - chillies, ginger, garlic, fish sauce, soy, oyster, hoisin and chilli sauces - work perfectly with these greens. Any European ingredients, such as butter, are somehow just plain wrong." Nigel Slater

He is talking about the pak choi, but it can obviously apply to the meat as well, and he offers - elsewhere it has to be said - an Asian kind of marinade - "135ml mirin, 4 tbsp white miso paste, 4 tbsp honey and a splash of peanut or vegetable oil." Especially good with chicken he says.

Re his comment about butter I actually found a basic recipe for pak choi itself - not in a stir fry - Pak choy with garlic and chilli from a new-to-me website called Slow the Cook Down which did use butter - quite a lot of it (see below). So maybe Nigel is not quite right about this, because it looks good. I would have to admit, however, that mostly people used peanut or coconut oil.

But then again the British cook Angela Hartnett went for olive oil, sage and lemon juice, which are more Mediterranean - not to mention the red peppers that she uses in her recipe for Pork escalopes with peppers and pak choi It actually seems a little bit weird to use pak choi. Not really an Asian dish at all. Would it work or just seem strange?

I also found that a few people went for the tray bake method and here there were a couple of fish recipes which also goes against Nigel's view that pak choi is not good with fish. But he's not Asian - and the Asians don't seem to mind - and he himself has a couple of recipes with shellfish. So I think we'll ignore him on this one. Here are three to choose from - and yes, one is NIgel's - curious in fact that the most interesting recipes - for me anyway - came from him and not from the Asians - Adam Liaw, Luke Nguyen, etc. Ginger chicken, sweet potato and pak choi traybake - Waitrose; Easy baked salmon and greens - Not Quite Nigella and Nigel's Chicken wings and pak choi.

I still haven't quite decided whether to keep looking for the perfect recipe, or to just try making something up, bearing in mind all the advice about suitable flavours - although there won't be any oyster sauce - I somehow just can't bear the idea of oyster sauce. Maybe I should buy some hoisin sauce or sambal oelek, maybe even gochujang however. And I do need to get some spring onions because they pop up everywhere. And some actual ginger, rather than the crushed stuff in a jar.

"So there you are, stuffing the steaming leaves into your mouth, getting the hot sting of garlic and ginger and the deep savour of the oyster sauce, then - crunch - you bite into the chubby stems and the blistering juice squirts out. A sensational mouthful that makes our national dish of buttered broccoli look about as exciting as compost." Nigel Slater

I agree with him about the broccoli. Not a fan.

YEARS GONE BY

March 5

2025 - Soused herrings - moments

2024 - Together, but separate

2023 - Cooking with gas - or not

2022 - Time for some mini bites

2021 - Missing

2020 - Missing

2019 - Nothing

2018 - Nothing

2017 - Nothing