Stir Fry Nai Bai Cai with dried shrimps

Posted on December 23, 2010 by Angeline
 stir fry nai bai cai

Nai Bai Cai (奶白菜) is known as Milk Cabbage or Bok Choi Sum though I think most of us just refer to it as Nai Bai most of the time. If you don’t take dried shrimp, just omit it as Nai Bai can simply be fried with garlic (清炒奶白) and it still makes for an aromatic dish to go along with other (meat) dishes (to go with rice).

If I’m not using dried shrimps, I’ll still fry my minced garlic golden brown then place it on top of the Nai Bai when serving. That’s my personal preference – you could do the usual stir-fry with garlic too (i.e. fry the garlic then add the vegetables).

I find that it’s hard to go wrong with Nai Bai, even if you’re a noob cook because first of all, it’s really easy to prepare. Just make sure you wash it thoroughly and trim off the base of the vegetable. Secondly, when you’re frying it, once the leaves wilt and turn a dark shade of green, you know they’re more or less done. Do a taste test to check your desired level of bite you like for the stem portion, add your seasoning of choice and it’s done!

Sounds simple enough? Yeah, just make sure you buy more of it because it shrinks quite a fair bit and you might not have enough of it!

3.0 from 1 reviews
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Stir-fried Nai Bai with dried shrimps
Author: 
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 2
 
Ingredients
  • 1 packet of nai bai from the supermarket (I sometimes buy the organic ones from the organic shop near me)
  • a couple of cloves of garlic, minced (about 2-3 teaspoons)
  • olive oil
  • about 1 tablespoon dried shrimp
  • ¼ bowl of water (I'm using a 300ml bowl)
Seasoning:
  • salt/ fish sauce/ light soy sauce to taste
Instructions
  1. Rinse the dried shrimp thoroughly and soak in ¼ bowl of water for about 15 min. Drain and reserve the water for later use.
  2. Remove any wilted leaves and slice off the base of the veggie. Wash thoroughly in case dirt is trapped in the leaves.
  3. Place the garlic and oil in a microwave safe bowl (loosely cover with microwave safe wrap and leave one corner uncovered) and heat for about 2-3min, stopping every about 1min and opening the microwave to prevent the oil for overheating. Once the garlic is a nice golden brown, you can stop cooking it. Alternatively, just fry garlic in oil in a wok (I was doing a batch of garlic oil for the whole day's worth of cooking so I used the microwave). 😛
  4. Heat the garlic oil in wok and add in dried shrimp. Fry till fragrant.
  5. Add the nai bai and fry for a short while before adding in the dried shrimp water.
  6. Cover wok and simmer till vegetables are cooked.
  7. Add seasoning to taste.
  8. Dish and top with crispy garlic bits.

 

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Posted in Chinese Food, Recipes, Vegetables | 2 Comments

Green papaya fish soup recipe (木瓜鱼片汤) for breastfeeding mothers and the family

Posted on December 19, 2010 by Angeline

Green papaya fish soup is believed to increase breast milk supply so it’s usually drunk by women who have just given birth (during confinement month – I drank this soup twice during confinement but didn’t really like the cooking.. haha) or breastfeeding mums who need that extra boost in breast milk supply. Normal papaya can also be used for this soup, just that you would need to cut down the time for simmering the soup so that the papaya will not disintegrate in the process of cooking. I don’t think I need that boost in milk supply but I just enjoy drinking the soup… lol. Come to think about it, I’ve been breastfeeding for almost 30months! 😛 (2016 UPDATE: I breastfed for 7 years and finally stopped breastfeeding. You can read my extended breastfeeding story here and my last breastfeeding post.)

I found a really small papaya today at the vegetable stall – it was supposed to be a green papaya (unripe) but since most of it looked almost ripe, when I expressed interest in it, the stall holder gave it to me. 😛 Hee.

And so, I changed the menu for dinner immediately… papaya fish soup was definitely gonna be on the menu for the night! I couldn’t get sheng yu however since it was all sold out so I decided to just use the red snapper fillet I just bought from my usual fish stall.

green papaya fish soup

5.0 from 2 reviews
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Papaya fish soup (木瓜鱼片汤) - breastfeeding mothers and the family
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Prep time: 
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Serves: 2-3
 
A nourishing soup which is believed to boost breast milk supply (if green papaya is used).
Ingredients
  • fish bones from 3 red snapper tails (I think it should be about 500g) - you can use other fish bones such as threadfin
  • 1 slab of red snapper fillet (costs about $5 at the market) - usually present in this soup is shengyu
  • 1 small (green) papaya - use green papaya especially if you want to boost breast milk supply
  • 5 slices ginger
  • 6 cloves garlic (skin on), rinse
  • 2 bunches of scallions (cut into 2" segments)
  • 6 seedless red dates
  • 2.5-3L water
  • 1-2 teaspoons hua diao jiu
  • sesame oil
Seasoning for soup:
  • salt/ fish sauce (I used fish sauce)
  • ground white pepper to taste
Marinate fish with:
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • a couple of dashes of pepper
  • ½- 1 teaspoon cornflour or potato starch
Instructions
  1. Skin the papaya, remove the seeds and cut into chunks.
  2. Scald the papaya briefly with boiling water to remove the sap. Drain and set aside.
  3. Add some sesame oil into the claypot and stir-fry the ginger till fragrant. Add the fish bones and fry for a short while. Remove from pot and place in a cloth soup bag - this is to ensure that there will be no bones in the soup and hence safe for consumption, especially for young children. Double check that there are no bones in the claypot after removing the fish bones.
  4. Add water into the claypot which you have just used (don't wash it) and bring it to a boil.
  5. Add the garlic, scallions, red dates, hua diao jiu, papaya and the bag of fish bones and bring the soup to a boil again.
  6. Simmer for about 1.5hours.
  7. Meanwhile, remove the skin from the fish fillet and slice the meat very thinly.
  8. Marinate the fish slices with salt, pepper and cornflour (prevents the fish from disintegrating). Set aside in the fridge.
  9. When soup is ready, remove the bag of bones, red dates, garlic, scallions and ginger, leaving only the papaya in the soup.
  10. Add seasoning to taste.
  11. Bring the soup to a boil again. Add the fish slices into the soup and turn off the fire. Cover the claypot and let the heat in the soup do the cooking of the fish.
  12. Dish and serve after a couple of minutes.

Although I didn’t use sheng yu today, the red snapper slices were wonderfully tender! Actually I thought they tasted even better than sheng yu slices! 🙂 Hubby was full of praise for the soup – usually he complains about the fishy soups his mum cooks or those from coffeeshops but he actually liked this fish soup and asked me to cook it more often! hee.

Tip: To make this a one-dish meal, you can blanch some bee hoon or other noodle of your choice and add it into the soup.

Click the link for the full list of soup recipes (with thumbnails) on this blog.

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Posted in Breastfeeding, Chinese Food, Food for kids, Recipes, Soups, Soups (suitable for tots) | Tagged | 21 Comments