Typical Pok Choi

P and I have this so so often that there is no other word for it but ‘typical’.
But it does stay delightful. Do NOT laugh, but we often do this for breakfast too as a sundry item. (actually, we used to eat quite a bit of oriental food at breakfast).


What do you need?
Pok Choi – one pack, about 200gms – break up each leaf into 2 or 3 parts.
Oil – sesame, peanut – 2 tsp
Garlic – 3-4 pods, finely sliced
Light Soy sauce – 2 tbsp
Some water
Sesame seeds
One red chilly sliced


So. Heat the wok and the oil. Get a spatula ready to fly! Bung in the garlic and stir – like 15 secs! Then throw in the pok choi (oh, iI truly hope at this stage that you washed off all the grime off the stems). Stir stir stir. Keep things moving. The leafy parts will start to wither!


After a couple of minutes, throw in the soy sauce. Stir things around well. And within a minute as things are sizzling, I add some water to cool things down! Not too much, barely like 3-4 tbsp worth! This provides the nice head of steam to cook off the white stems of the pok choi.


Finally add the sesame seeds and red chilli, stir, check one of the stems in your mouth for a ‘done test’ and plate the dish. It will have a watery residue, but very little, and that is the point of pok choi well done.


Had with a fork. Or chopsticks. Better with rice. 
I have often added some sliced mushrooms to this dish with good effect! Don’t be scared!

This wonderful, fall-in-love-with ginger sauce . Mmmm.

Promise to re-publish this with a photo the next time I make this!
Aug 20, 2012 – Updated with the snaps when I made this again today.

Again – this was inspired from Luscious Temptations.
The post is about a Hainanese chicken with Garlic rice – and that looks tempting as hell! But I went there for the ginger and spring onion sauce mentioned at the end! 

ginger – about 4 tbsp grated
spring onions – about 4 tbsp – just the white heads = sliced fine
sliced fresh red chillies – 1 tbsp
sesame oil – 2 tbsp. You can use a normal vegetable oil if you don’t have sesame; but really this sauce makes the sesame oil worth the effort.
salt – to taste

Add all the ingredients in a small shallow bowl, give it a good whisk to mix them up. Then put the bowl into the steamer. Steam away for about 15 mins. When you lift the lid, it should have a light brown texture with the red of the chillies adding a depth of color!

When I made this the last time, I added in some sesame seeds. Like so!

Serve slightly cooled or room temperature with the rice and steamed fish! Keeps well in the fridge for a couple of days as well.

Chicken in Hoisin

Disclaimer – that is a web crawled photo. But it looks just like what I just dished up and ate, so using it with credit! Its missing the sesame seeds though 😦


The ginger, soy fish is wonderful! But like everything else from an amateur kitchen, it needs a bit of de-risking. Specially when demanding & picky kids are involved. V doesn’t like fish anyway!


Chicken –  boneless pieces 2″ square – about 200gms
Chopped garlic – about a tbsp
Hoisin sauce from a bottle – 2 or 3 tbsp
Sliced spring onions and sesame seeds for garnish


So this quick and easy chicken in hoisin sauce. Simple as hell. Just fried the chicken with a little garlic in sesame oil. Dumped in 3-4 spoonfuls of readymade hoisin sauce. And then stir stir stir (i’m using a wok for this stuff… just don’t let anything sit still in the wok for long). Once the chicken is done, I tend to add water, mix everything up once, and remove the chicken pieces with a slotted spoon. This allows me to scrape all the juices and sauce from the pan into the liquid now. And then on high heat I let the liquid dry down to a thickish sauce, at which point back goes the chicken! Turn everything around, garnish with some sliced spring onion and sesame seeds, give another nice toss, and its ready to be plated! 


Serve with rice or some spicy hakka noodles.


Hoisin tends to be on the sweeter side; so if you want to adapt it you may want to add a dash of soy or fish sauce to balance the sweetness, as well as some lime juice. I tend to use very little hoisin when I make this dish.


Cost estimate for this dish (fed 2) – is under Rs.100! A bottle of hoisin costs about Rs.150 I think. Good thing to keep if you’ve got kids in the house! 

Steamed fish with ginger, spring onions and soy!

It’s fitting that this blog starts here, and today. 
This is one of Payal and my favorite dishes, across choices of cuisine. It’s one of the few dishes with which I don’t completely insist on a carb-accompaniment.


It was made this afternoon at lunch, which is why I felt it necessary to start writing some of these twists down. And yes, it was afternoon & lunch. I was cooking. I happen to be away from work on leave. To relax. And for me much of that happens to be in the kitchen!


Here are some of the links that I have used before as well. You can skip them and move right along if you want.


Luscious Temptations is one kickass blog of someone who is obviously a kickass cook and foodie. I recall when I made this fish the first time, it was by following the recipe here. The addition of sautéed onions was a result of this piece. I had been wondering how steamed onions would be, and this was a great way to add them in. Epicurious generally has the goods, but in this case I decided not to incorporate any of the stuff they said – the pepper and cayenne seemed a bit much for this gentle dish. They speak about adding mushrooms – which I recall I had done in my original attempt.


The fish I like to work with is Basa. 
3 fillets of Basa – about 600gms. (Got a frozen kilo of that at Nature’s Basket for under Rs.500)
The Fish & Atop
Juliennes of ginger (about half a handful)
1 Red Onion – diced and sautéed till brown (or you can grate it & sauté, but the dicing gives it better texture)
Assorted Mushrooms – sliced – couple of handfuls. I used a rehydrated pack of sundry mushrooms; but I can tell you from experience that fresh shiitake are the dreamiest! 
The Sauce (just mix these up in a bowl)
Sesame or peanut oil – 4tbs
Light Soya Sauce – 4tbs (or use less than 3tbs of the normal one)
Rice Wine Vinegar – 2tbs – don’t worry if this is not in the larder… just leave it out.
Water – 2tbs
Fish Sauce – 1tbs – again optional. If you want to give this dish a distinctly thai touch, please use fish sauce, and add in sliced lemongrass and replace the ginger with galangal in the ‘Atop’. Worth a try next time for me too!
The Garnish
2 Spring Onions (sliced diagonal)
2 Fresh Red Chillies (sliced diagonal)


Oh. And you need a steamer! I use my newly acquired bamboo one (crawford mkt). But you can put an elevated plate inside a cooker full of boiling water. Needless to say, the water should not be touching your dish or plate. In my steamer (about 6″) incidentally, I can make no more than 2 long fillet’s; or about 6 pieces 4″x4″ at a time.


That’s it! All set!
Put the fish on a long piece of foil and fold the foil edges inwards a bit (just preventing the juices from flowing away). Make a few slits in the fillet and spoon over some of the sauce into the slits and over the fillet. On top of the fillet, rub some of the sautéed onion, put a liberal amount of julienned ginger and heap the fillet with the mushrooms. Lower the whole foil package into the steamer; and then add a second lot if you have the space. 


If you water is nicely on the boil in the steamer or cooker, then this should take no more than 8-10 minutes of steaming. Lift and check! If the fish is all flaky and white, then you’re done! Garnish with a liberal amount of spring onions and chilles and place into a serving dish. Finally – put some more of the ‘sauce’ on top of the whole dish. I keep making more sauce on the fly since its so simple… so if I find that I need more of this light sauce with my rice, I just make a little more quickly. A couple of times, I have also poured a tsp of sizzling chili oil on top of the whole dish – wonderful – adds a zing. But I avoid this if my girls are eating with us.


Served best with saada steamed rice! And a dash of the sauce if you’ve kept it handy.


My estimate is that this dish (fed 4) cost me no more than Rs.400. And since I eat this so often at Ling’s and Royal China this brings a grin to my face. What your guess? Check Royal China’s prices at Zomato here :). They do a terrific job though; I’d still beat the doors down to eat the same dish there!


Accompaniments!
This ginger & spring onion sauce is a must!
And if parts of your family won’t touch fish, then this quick chicken in hoisin works well.
With pretty much any oriental meal, I will always add a side of greens. This pok choi is typical.
And depending on how much firing up the meal needs, this really really quick chilly sauce!