Smoky Bok Choy with Garlic Sauce
Author, The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science; The Wok: Recipes and Techniques
"Wok hei, that smoky “breath of a wok” can go a long way toward livening up mildly flavored greens, and a simple garlicky glaze seasoned only with salt and white pepper accentuates the natural flavor of stalky greens or sweet leafy greens. If I’m not using my outdoor wok burner, I use my kitchen blowtorch to get smokiness into the greens. Transferring them to a tray to apply the torch makes it a simple and (relatively) safe operation that’s still fun to watch.
When blanching greens for stir-frying, add the tougher stalks to the water first to give them a jump start on cooking before adding the greens."
—J. Kenji López-Alt
Ingredients
This recipe will work with any vegetables from the stalky and crunchy or the leafy and sweet categories in the chart on page 201. Vegetables should be trimmed of hard stems and cut into 2- to 3-inch segments. Wide vegetables like bok choy should be split lengthwise into halves or quarters. If you are not comfortable holding the torch while stir-frying, have a partner hold the torch for you or return the bok choy to the rimmed baking sheet after stir-frying for 30 seconds in step 4, spread into a single layer, place on a heatproof surface (like your range top), and sweep the torch back and forth over the bok choy until a smoky aroma reaches your nose, about 15 seconds. Return the bok choy to the wok and continue with step 5.
Method
Total time: 15 minutes
For the Greens:
Kosher salt
12 ounces (340 g) bok choy, trimmed, each stalk split lengthwise, and cut into 2- to 3-inch pieces, leafy greens and white stalks washed and reserved separately (see Notes)
For the Cornstarch Slurry:
½ teaspoon (1.5 g) cornstarch
1 tablespoon (15 ml) water
For the Stir-Fry:
1 tablespoon (15 ml) peanut, rice bran, or other neutral oil
3 medium garlic cloves, minced (about 1 tablespoon/8 g)
2 teaspoons (10 g) minced fresh ginger (about ½-inch segment)
½ teaspoon (2 g) sugar
Pinch of freshly ground white pepper
What it works best with: Stalky and crunchy greens (such as gai lan, yu choy, or baby bok choy) or leafy and strong greens (such as tatsoi, watercress, or mustard greens).
Reprinted from THE WOK: Recipes and Techniques by J. Kenji López-Alt. Copyright © 2022 J. Kenji López-Alt. With permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.
Yield
Serves 4
