Bok Choy, Baby
While those of you with CSA (Community Sponsored Agriculture) subscriptions in other parts of the country may be enjoying such delights as fresh peas and strawberries, those of us here in the Pacific Northwest are facing a cold spring that has left our poor farmers scrambling to provide for us.
I’m getting lots of nice herbs, and some garlic shoots (which make a teriffic cream soup, if you stumble across them at your local farmer’s market), and bok choy. Big bok choy. Bok choy that looks like it’s plotting to overthrow a government somewhere. I’m afraid to have two or more of them in my canvas bag together for fear they’ll organize a coup. Big.
So what, I thought, do I do with these things? I’ve certainly cooked with bok choy before, but it was the smaller “baby” ones that I used. You know, cute and friendly-looking. To my relief, what I found in separating and cleaning them was that the growth pattern of the plant is such that the baby ones actually grow as offshoots to the huge ones. In fact, that’s why they’re so menacing-looking; there are actually a couple of baby ones under the outer leaves of the largest plants. I was getting a two-for-one deal of sorts; one or two babies along with the bigger one.
With newfound courage, I began combing my cookbooks for my favorite ways of cooking bok choy. I find it’s a vegetable that’s commonly called for in Australian recipes. I am a devoted fan of Donna Hay, and often her recipes recommend that such-and-such be served with steamed bok choy. Thus I turned to her book Off the Shelf: Cooking from the Pantry to see what I could come up with. I apologize for not having pictures of the completed dish, but trust me, this recipe for bok choy will make you a fan of it, and it takes all of ten minutes to whip up.
Greens in Oyster Sauce
Steam halved bok choy over boiling water until tender. Place 2 teaspoons sesame oil in a hot wok with 2 tablespoons of shredded ginger and cook for 1 minute. Add 1/3 cup oyster sauce, 2 tablespoons brown sugar and 1/3 cup Chinese rice wine and simmer until thick. Place greens on serving plates and spoon sauce over top.
photo of not-as-scary-as-it-looks bok choy by themodernapron.
