Chinese greens with oyster & ginger

(Date: 27 January 2013)

The 18th recipe in 2013, and the 8th Nigel Slater's one. "Chinese greens with Oyster & Ginger" from Nigel Slater's The Kitchen Diaries. Ok. I know it sounds weird for me, a native Chinese from Hong Kong, to use an Englishman's recipe to make Chinese greens in oyster sauce. But as part of my journey following Nigel Slater's footsteps in understanding more about food & cooking, why not? (I boiled the Choi Sum in a different way than suggested by Nigel Slater though...)

Instead of steamed rice, I serve it with plum-flavoured Japanese buckwheat soba noodle. The only reason to do so was the fact that the soba was expiring in March. The aesthetically appealing pink & green combo was a bit beyond my expectation.

What I used: (for 2)

200g choy sum

2 large cloves

a piece of thumb-size ginger

1 tbsp sunflower oil

4 tbsp oyster sauce

What I did:

Peel the garlic & slice thinly. Pare the ginger & cut into matchstick-thick shreds. / Chop the Choi Sum in 1.5"-lengths. Separate leaves & stems. / Put a pan of lightly salted boiling water to boil for the greens. Add stem first, then add leaves only after a minute. After 2 more minutes of cooking, drain immediately. /Warm the oil in a medium-sized saucepan, tip in the sliced garlic and shredded ginger and fry until soft and nut brown. / Stir the oyster sauce into the browned ginger and garlic and leave to bubble briefly. / Tip the greens into the oyster sauce. Toss the vegetables around gently in the sauce and aromatics, then serve with noodle or steamed rice.

What I felt:

I followed the recipe closely except I cooked the Choi Sum differently. I admit that the method I used looks unnecessarily tedious. But I do LOVE NEED my greens to be crunchy & green. Wilting soft greens kill my appetite and they usually end up in Hubbee's plate as I refuse to put them into my mouth. This dish in fact tastes pretty good. I think it's less oily & more refreshing than the traditional Chinese Greens in Oyster Sauce we are used to back in Hong Kong or any Chinese eateries here.

Note to self:

The thinly sliced garlic & ginger matches burned much quicker than I could imagine. It just turned from raw to charcoal in a mere 5 minutes. Keep a close eye!

How good was it? 8/10. Quite good. Not as heavy as other oriental vegetable stir-fries.

How easy was it? 7/10. Not difficult. But it's not easy to nicely chop ginger into matchstick-likes.

How economical was it? 6/10. Not particularly expensive but cooking oriental vegetables is generally pricier than cooking lettuce, carrots or courgettes. Choi Sum costs £1.5 for 200g (which was actually not enough for 2). The amount of Oyster sauce used might costs about 50p. The total should be about £2.

Will I make this again? Not until I can move to another flat with a better ventilation hood. My flat is full of gingery oyster sauce smell in the next 2 days.