Cooking with Kylie: Bok Choy with Oyster Sauce

I've always liked bok choy. In my new favourite grocery store, T&T Supermarket, I've seen it in three different forms: regular bok choy, baby bok choy, and bok choy sprouts, which looks like mini baby bok choy. Baby bok choy was on for 99¢/lb the other day, bundled up in pre-packaged baggies. One of these baggies cost me $1.66 or something ridiculously cheap like that. I had plans for it, but they kinda fell through (long story involving a piece of salmon I left too long in the fridge...), but today I felt like making some comfort food in the form of Kylie's dressed wontons and after looking through the veggie section in Simple Chinese Cooking, I found exactly what I was looking for: a simple bok choy side dish.

The recipe is HERE.

Incidentally, did you know that bok choy gets pretty yellow flowers?


I adapted this recipe slightly because I don't do peanut oil. Apart from that, I followed the rest of the recipe as written.


It was ridiculously easy, and I'm glad it wasn't stir fried. I like, and always have, the texture of steamed bok choy in soups and stuff like that, so boiling the bok choy appealed to me. This was really good, and I'll definitely make it again. I still have bok choy left, in fact.

Here is a look at my wonton dish, too:


If you have not tried this recipe yet, YOU HAVE TO! It's soooooooooooo good!

Book Review: My China, by Kylie Kwong

I treated myself to this weighty tome for Christmas, being a fan of Kylie Kwong's Simple Chinese Cooking, which launched my series Cooking with Kylie.

My China's subtitle is "A Feast for the Senes" and that it definitely is.

Kylie is a fourth generation Chinese Australian, born in Sydney. This book is her homage to her Chinese heritage, and recounts her travels through much of China and Tibet, cooking and eating as she goes. She starts off in the village of her ancestors, where she is greeted like a long lost relative and where she cooks up the first of many feasts featuring local ingredients in rustic cooking conditions. My China takes the reader everywhere: up the Yangtze, along the Silk Road, the Great Wall, to the great cities of Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Beijing, to Lhasa in Tibet, and to a place that really fascinates me Xi'an, where the Terracotta Army resides. Interspersed with food history and stories, are cultural vignettes featuring Chinese history written with Kylie's sense of wonder, respect, and enthusiasm.

Kylie's descriptions of her experiences are a feast for all the senses. She is a great writer, I discovered, incorporating sound, taste, touch, and smell into her narrative so well I could imagine myself there with her. And there are plenty of large, colourful photos to feast the eyes on.

There are over 80 new recipes in this book, and I have yet to try them. But I will!

This is a great companion book to Beyond the Great Wall, which I reviewed here. There were many similarities between the two books, both being a great mixture of travelogue, photographs, recipes, and personal stories.

If you are fan of Kylie Kwong and Chinese food, history, and culture, you cannot go wrong with My China!

Cooking with Kylie: Stir-Fried Asparagus with Baby Corn

I haven't made anything with Kylie's book Simple Chinese Cooking in a little while, but I am back on the bandwagon! This time, I made a simple stir-fried side dish that was really quick and delicious. Now, obviously, asparagus is not in season here in my little corner of the world, but I have to say that the LOGS has been carrying asparagus from Peru that has been a very decent price, like $2.99/lb, and it has been very tempting. So, I caved. And actually, the asparagus was very good. I always have mini corn cobs on hand for stir fries and snacking - I love these things!

I made half a recipe and had enough for two meals, but I made the regular amount of sauce because I didn't want to deal with the 1/3 cup of chicken stock the original recipe calls for. I never have small amounts of stock around like that, and I have no intention of starting to keep ice cube trays of stock in my freezer because I simply don't have the space or the inclination. The sauce was yummy, so I have no regrets! I also skipped the green onions.

Stir-fried Asparagus with Baby Corn (page 205 of Simple Chinese Cooking), adapted by yours truly

1 bunch asparagus
1 tbsp safflower oil
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 can baby corn, drained and sliced in half lengthwise
2 tbsp sake
2 tsp oyster sauce
2 tsp malt vinegar
1 tsp white sugar
1/4 tsp sesame oil

Wash & trim asparagus, discarding woody ends.

Heat oil in wok until surface seems to shimmer slightly. Add garlic and stir-fry for 10 seconds. Add asparagus and corn and stir-fry for about 1 minute. Add sauce ingredients and stir fry for a about three minutes, or until asparagus is bright green and tender-crisp. Serve immediately.

Awesome! I really enjoyed this, and plan to make another version of it tonight, incorporating chicken into it as well as some water chestnuts. I loved the sauce, too; it's light, like a vinaigrette, almost. Another fabulicious Kylie recipe!

Cooking with Kylie: "Mum's Stir-fried Chicken Fillets"

Oh, how I am loving this series I'm doing! I can't get enough of this cookbook, and think I'll take a look on Amazon to see what else Kylie has published, because she's awesome!

Here is another simple recipe from Simple Chinese Cooking that was delicious. I didn't use chicken fillets, but rather I used some chicken breasts because that's what I had on hand. I also didn't use any chilli as the recipe calls for because I don't like them; I used some orange bell pepper instead. The original recipe also calls for stock, but I didn't need any more liquid so I didn't use it. Kylie describes this as one of her mum's "no-nonsense dishes."

Stir-friend Chicken, à la Kylie's mum (adapted by me from "Mum's Stir-fried Chicken Fillets on page 81 of Simple Chinese Cooking)

For the marinade:

1 tbsp sake
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp oyster sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp finely grated ginger
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 2cm slices

Combine chicken with marinade ingredients and set aside to marinate for about half an hour.

2 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 medium white onion, sliced
3 spring onions, trimmed & cut into 10cm lengths
1 tbsp sake
1/2 orange bell pepper, finely sliced

Heat 1 tbsp oil in a wok until surface appears to shimmer. Add chicken and marinade & stir-fry until cooked. Remove from wok & set aside.

Add 1 tbsp oil to wok & stir-fry onion, pepper, & spring onion for 1 minute. Add chicken and stir-fry for another minute.

I served mine with rice.

Again, yummy, simple, and quick. Again, a winner from Kylie!

Cooking With Kylie: Stir-Fried Chicken Fillets with Cashews

So, this is my third recipe using Kylie Kwong's Simple Chinese Cooking (I've also made soy sauce eggs and Mongolian Beef). I was attracted to this dish because of its simplicity and the fact that I had cashews on hand. I made half a recipe, which gave me two hearty meals, and since I don't like cucumber, I stir-fried in some sliced zucchini in its place.

Stir-fried Chicken Fillets with Cashews (adapted by moi)

Marinade

1 tbsp shao hsing wine or dry sherry
1 tbsp cornstarch
1.5 tsp cold water
1/2 tsp sea salt

Chicken

400g boneless, chicken thighs (about 4 thighs)
1 medium zucchini
2 tbsp veg oil
1/2 cup raw cashews
3 cloves garlic
1 tbsp shao hsing wine or dry sherry
1 tsp sea salt
3 finely sliced green onions

1. Combine chicken with marinade ingredients & marinate for 30 minutes.

2. Chop veggies.

3. Heat oil in wok & stir-fry chicken until cooked through and slightly browned. Remove from wok with slotted spoon & place in a bowl.

4. Stir-fry veggies until tender. Add nuts & stir-fry until golden.

5. Return chicken to wok with accumulated juices. Increase heat to high and add wine/sherry. Stir-fry for a few more moments. Season with salt.

6. Serve & garnish with some more green onions.

I suspect that, with this recipe, I was really missing the shao hsing wine. Try as I might, I cannot find this ingredient anywhere in da boonies. We simply don't have the population for specialty ingredients like this, and I think I'm going to need to get to a larger centre, like Vancouver or Calgary, in order to do pick up some of these more obscure items. Instead of shao hsing wine, I've been using cooking sherry, which is OK, but this dish needed a lot of help flavour-wise. I wound up adding a bunch of soy sauce to boost the flavours.

I served this over rice, and it was a good meal. I really liked using the chicken thighs; they aren't something I use a lot - I always thought them too fatty. But they are quite succulent and flavourful, and not to mention, cheaper than breasts. I'll definitely cook with them again!

I probably won't make this recipe until I get my hands on some real shao hsing, but it's still not a bad recipe. Worth attempting again once I get the right ingredients.

Cooking With Kylie: Mongolian Beef

So, at the local overpriced grocery store the other day, this coyote came upon a screaming deal: 1.5kg local, organic, lean ground beef for $7.50. It was my lucky day! I picked up and brought it home, packaging it up and freezing it. I had a half pound portion, and decided to make this recipe by Kylie Kwong that I'd bookmarked when I got my copy of Simple Chinese Cooking.

I present to you Mongolian Beef!

I made a half recipe, and instead of using cabbage I bought a package of coleslaw mix, which is one of my stir-frying allies. I love it!

Now, the cookbook recipe calls for shao hsing wine and I notice that the recipe on the web site has changed it to rice wine. I had neither. When I got the cookbook, I looked everywhere I could in this one horse district for shao hsing wine but to no avail. The cookbook says you can substitute the wine for dry sherry, but I am too cheap to do that, so I bought a bottle of cooking sherry from the local inexpensive but butt-ugly big box grocery store. I have no idea how the flavours compare, but we do what we can, right?

The verdict: great recipe! Simple, as you might expect. I didn't do the step of combining the cabbage with the salt because I was lazy, and perhaps I'd have had a more complexly flavoured dish, but still, I wasn't disappointed. Thank you, Kylie!

Breakfasts of Champions

Just a light Friday post, featuring some recent breakfasts.

But first, remember that Magazine Monday is coming up this Monday, so if you have made a magazine recipe you'd like me to link to, please send you submissions in by Sunday evening. My email is wandering_coyoteATyahooDOTca. Thanks!

Now, breakfast.

1. Huckleberry Gruel.

Sounds Dickensian - sort of - doesn't it? I think this sounds slightly more interesting than huckleberry oatmeal. But I do have to say, I like my oatmeal a little thinner than most people, so even though it's not as watery as a gruel, it's definitely not the stick-to-your-ribs kind of oatmeal that is more popular. I had this bowl with some maple syrup and it was a great breakfast! I love the colour huckleberries turn everything.

2. Ah, left over Chinese food - the breakfast of champions! On Monday, I went out on a girls night to have dinner & see a movie. Since the big theatre is in Castlegar, we chose to go to Chopsticks for dinner. Because of my appetite issues, this was great for me because I had such a wide variety of things to choose from, and I made sure to get stuff that I could take home as decent leftovers, too. I love leftover Chinese food for breakfast, just like I love leftover pizza for breakfast! So, I got a Wor Won Ton (the best!), only ate half of it, and had the rest wrapped up, and I got a combination plate that included chow mein, deep fried prawns, sweet & sour pork, and beef with greens. Excellent! I ate half of it, too, and brought the rest home for breakfast. It was fabulous!

Kylie Kwong's Soy Sauce Eggs

Over the winter, I bought myself a copy of Kylie Kwong's Simple Chinese Cooking with an Amazon gift certificate my good friend Jodi gave me. And I am just now getting around to trying out a recipe!

I might venture into one of those food blogging trends a la Julie & Julia, where I cook my way through a cookbook & blog about it. I think this Kwong cookbook is a good place to start. We'll see how it goes.

Anyway, with my weird appetite issues, which persist, unfortunately, I for some reason remembered this recipe and it really appealed to me at the time. It looked simple enough and the flavour combination intrigued me. I made half a recipe to start out with in case I didn't like them.

The recipe is here.

Here is a look at my process, from the beginning. My hard boiled eggs went into the soy sauce mixture, after mixture camed to a boil.

The cartouche part didn't really work for me, and I didn't see the point of it. When I placed it on the eggs, it kept the steam in and would bubble to the top. It got annoying to keep letting the steam out so the cartouche wouldn't fly away on me, so I tried the lid of the pot. It boiled over. So, I simmered without any covering, just making sure to keep the eggs basted in the liquid. This worked fine.

This recipe takes a long time - an hour of braising. Here are the eggs half-way through.

And here they are at the end, by which time the soy sauce mixture had reduced to a thick syurp. BTW, I didn't use the fresh ginger, I used 2 tsp of ground.

They don't look terribly appetizing at this point...

And here they are plated...I couldn't resist the googly-eyed face...

These taste delicious, but the drawback is that it's a lot of work for not a lot of end product. The outer part of the egg was a little rubbery, but not off-puttingly so. I might make a larger batch for a special occasion.

I wonder what I'll do next?

Chopsticks Birthday Dinner

So, it's my birthday on Friday, but due to scheduling conflicts within my family, we had my birthday dinner last night. I chose Chopsticks in Castlegar, which is seriously the best Chinese food & sushi around these parts. I also went there last year.

We had a huge feast of both sushi & Chinese food and it was amazing! Here are the highlights.

I started off with a nice girly drink - a pina colada. Yum!

We then had a starter of Wor Won-Ton. It's the best I've ever had.

The non-sushi eaters had some veggie tempura.
This is the Caterpillar Roll, which is made with BBQ Eel, avocado, and a really good BBQ sauce. It's my favourite and it is sooooo good. Not to mention, the presentation is awesome.
We also had the Dynamite Roll, which is my other favourite. Totally excellent.
Then, onto the Chinese food: Lemon Chicken, Ginger Beef, & Chicken & Mushroom Chow Mein. It was all hot, fresh, and delicious.

There were very few leftovers, I can tell you that! And the best part was yet to come: at home, we had a Dairy Queen ice cream cake - Tin Roof Sunday Blizzard-flavour and it was da bomb!
It was an excellent time with my family and I am truly blessed to have them in my life! On my real birthday, I get to go camping! I'm totally stoked about that!