Fragrant Asian Cabbage
I learnt to cook Chinese food from a dear friend’s father who was a Cantonese chef. I would sit at his kitchen table and watch as he carved vegetables using a huge cleaver, deftly creating beautiful butterflies from chunks of carrot. I love the simplicity of many of the dishes, where they’re heavy on the vegetables and light on the meat. This fragrant cabbage dish was often scattered with little nuggets of salty bacon or lap cheong (Chinese sausage).
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp Canola oil (or any neutral tasting oil)
- ¼ Cabbage, finely sliced
- 1 tbsp Garlic, finely chopped
- 1 tbsp Ginger, finely chopped
- 1 tbsp Soy Sauce
- 1 tbsp Shaoxing Rice Wine (you can use sherry or white wine as a substitute)
- 1 tsp Sesame Oil
- 1 tbsp Chives, finely chopped (use Chinese/Garlic chives if you can find them)
Instructions
- Put a large wok or frying pan on high heat and add your canola oil. Heat for one minute or until you see the oil start to smoke. Once your pan is very hot, add your cabbage and toss/stir often. I like to get a bit of colour on my cabbage as it releases the lovely sugars and has great flavour. Toss for 2-3 minutes or until your cabbage starts to go bright green.
- Scatter your garlic and ginger across the cabbage, toss through and cook for one minute.
- Add your soy sauce, rice wine and sesame oil and toss again. Cook for a further minute or until the cabbage is cooked but still has a slight crunch.
- Add your chives and stir to combine. Take off the heat and serve.
Notes
- The key to this dish is cooking it quickly and at a high temperature. Just be careful of oil splatter when you add the cabbage.
- As I’m trying to teach people to be confident with cooking, this is why I always suggest an ingredient substitution when there is one. Cooks often panic when they don’t have every ingredient for the recipe. There is a time and place for substitution though…don’t leave the flour out of a cake!