Terry’s Kitchen

Stir Fried Mixed Vegetables
Broccoli in Oyster Sauce
Braised Chinese Vegetables

Being basically an agricultural country, China has turned vegetable cooking into a fine art.
Almost all are cooked for a very short time, preserving their natural flavours and textures, as well as their vitamins and brightness of colour.
The Chinese eat far more vegetables than meat or poultry and with a few exceptions, almost all meat and poultry dishes include some kind of vegetable as a supplementary ingredient; this is to give the dishes a harmonious balance of colour, aroma, flavour and texture.
Always pick the freshes vegetables you can find and cook them as soon as possible.
Wash the vegetables just before cutting so that you lose none of the vitamins.

Stir Fried Mixed Vegetables

The Chinese never mix ingredients indiscriminately, they are carefully selected to achieve a harmonious balance of contrasting colours and textures.

Serves 4

60g (2oz) mangetout (snow peas)
1 small carrot
125g (4oz) Chinese leaves
125g (4oz) fresh bean sprouts
60g (2oz) black or white mushrooms
60g (2oz) canned bamboo shoots, rinsed and drained
3-4 tbspns vegetable oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tbspn oyster sauce or light soy sauce
Few drops of sesame oil
Dipping sauce to serve (optional)

Prepare the vegetables: top and tail the mangetout and cut the carrot, chinese leaves, mushrooms and bamboo shoots into roughly the same size and shape as the mangetout.

Heat the oil in a wok and add the carrot first.
Stir-fry for a few seconds, then add the mangetout and chinese leaves.
Stir-fry for about 1 minute.

Add the bean sprouts, mushrooms and bamboo shoots and stir-fry for another minute.

Add the salt and sugar, continue stirring for another minute, then add the oyster sauce or soy sauce.
blend well and add the sesame oil.
Serve hot or cold with a dip sauce (if liked).

Note*
It’s important to use fresh bean sprouts for this dish, the canned ones don’t have the crunchy texture that is vital to the dish.
If fresh ones are unavailable, select another vegetable; keeping in mind colour and texture contrast.

Broccoli in Oyster Sauce

Some Cantonese restaurants use only the stalks of the broccoli for this dish, for the crunchy texture.
Being a bit of a broccoli fiend I use all of the broccoli.

Serves 4

250g-300g (8-10oz) broccoli
3 tbspns vegetable oil
3-4 small slices of root ginger
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
3-4 tbsnps Chinese stock See here or water
1 tbspn oyster sauce

Cut the broccoli spears into small florets.
Trim the stalks, peel off the rough skin and cut the stalks, diagonally, into diamond shaped chunks. *Note See here

Heat the oil in a wok and add the pieces of broccoli stalk and the ginger.
Stir-fry for about 30 seconds, then add the broccoli florets and continue stir-frying for another 2 minutes.

Add the salt, sugar and stock or water and continue stirring for another minute or so.

Blend in the oyster sauce.
Serve hot or cold.

Note*
The broccoli stalks have to be peeled and cut diagonally to ensure they cook evenly. If they are thin, the pieces can be added at the same time as the florets.

Braised Chinese Vegetables

This dish is also known as Lo Han Zhai or Buddha’s Delight.
The original recipe calls for 18 different vegetables to represent the 18 Buddhas (Lo Han) but here we will be using 6 to 8.

Serves 4

5g (1/4oz) dried wood ears See here
1 cake tofu (bean curd)
60g (2oz) mangetout (snow peas)
125g (4oz) Chinese leaves
1 small carrot
90g (3oz) canned baby corn, drained
90g (3oz) canned straw mushrooms, rinsed and drained See here
60g (2oz) canned water chestnuts, rinsed and drained
300ml (1/2 pint) vegetable oil
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tbspn light soy sauce or oyster sauce
2-3 tbspns Chinese stock See here or water

Soak the wood ears in warm water for 15-20 minutes, then rinse and drain, discard any hard bits.
Dry on kitchen paper.

Cut the tofu into about 18 small pieces.
Top and tail the mangetout.
Cut the chinese leaves and the carrot into slices roughly the same shape and size as the mangetout.
Cut the baby corn, the straw mushrooms and the water chestnuts in half.

Heat the oil in a wok.
Add the tofu and deep fry for about 2 minutes until it turns golden brown.
Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper.

Pour off the oil, leaving 2 tbspns in the wok.
Add the carrot, chinese leaves and mangetout and stir-fry for about 1 minute.

Add the baby corn, mushrooms and water chestnuts.
Stir gently for 2 more minutes, then add the salt, sugar, soy sauce, stock or water.
Bring to the boi and stir-fry for 1 more minute.

Sprinkle with sesame oil and serve hot or cold.

Chinese Stock

Makes 2.5 litres/4 pints/10 cups

750g/1 1/2 lbs chicken pieces
750g/1 1/2 lbs pork spare ribs
3.75 litres/6 pints/15 cups cold water
3-4 pieces ginger, crushed
3-4 spring onions (scallions)
3-4 tbspns Chinese rice wine/dry sherry

Trim off excess fat from chicken and spare ribs.
Chop them into large pieces.

Place the chicken and pork pieces in a large pan with water.
Add the ginger and spring onions.

Bring to the boil and skim off the scum.
Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for at least 2-3 hours.

Strain the stock, discarding the chicken, pork, ginger and spring oinions.
Add the wine/sherry and return to the boil, simmer for 2-3 minutes.

When cool, refridgerate for up to 4-5 days.
Alternatively, it can be frozen in small containers and defrosted as required.

Wood Ears

Wood ears is a kind of fungus, obtained from Chinese supermarkets.
If unavailable, use another variety of Chinese mushroooms.