Black Tie Bok Choy

Our friends who attended Sugar Coma have been begging us for our bok choy recipe. We catered the lunch for this wonderful event and bok choy was one of our side dishes! We have not been holding out on you. We've just been really busy - tweeting, catering, planning our next  Secret Supper, watching Jersey Shore.
We are so glad that you enjoyed the bok choy and we would love for you to be able to enjoy it at home.
So let's get started.

Ingredients:
8 oz Bok Choy (1 bunch if you get a nice healthy one from the farmer's market - the grocery store bok choy can be a little anemic)
2 Tablespoons Sunflower oil  or Peanut Oil (good for high heat)
2 Tablespoons of white wine (any white wine will do - water will work if you don't want the alcohol) 2 Tablespoons of Sesame Oil
1 Tablespoon of sugar
1 Tablespoon of soy sauce
Crushed Red pepper flakesSesame Seeds

 Steps
1. Heat your wok or frying pan.  The best stir fry is on the highest heat you can manage on your home stove. Just set the wok on the stove and turn up the gas.

2. Wash your bok choy. It's one of those vegetables that is usually visibly dirty when you buy it.

3. Add  your sunflower oil or peanut oil to the wok and let it heat up.

3.  Chop up your bok choy.  Discard the white part.  We're only using the leaves.
How finely should you chop it?  Chop it however you chop your collard greens.  You can chop it really fine or you can just rip the leaves into a few pieces.  I like to roll a bunch into a cylinder and slice. Here's one of my bunches chopped.

 4. Put your bok choy in your hot oil.  You should hear a big swoosh and it should sizzle because your pan and your oil are nice and hot. The noise will be loud.  Don't be startled and drop your leaves.  And be careful. Cook the bok choy for five minutes, stirring occasionally.

5. In a small sauce pan, heat the sesame oil, water/wine, and soy sauce.  When it starts to bubble, stir in the sugar.  Then turn off the heat and let it sit.

6. Check on your bok choy.  If it's starting to stick to the pan, add a tablespoon or two of water.

7. After cooking the bok choy for five minutes, pour your sweet sauce over the bok choy.

 

8. Cook the sauced up bok choy for one more minute.

9. Turn off the heat on the stove and the heat to the pan, i.e. sprinkle in a few crushed red pepper flakes according to taste.

10. Sprinkle on some sesame seeds for garnish.

11. Enjoy!
 

Recipe Notes

• Bok choy cooks down.  Way down. My final "Enjoy!" picture actually triples the recipe. The original recipe only serves 2.  Why did I do that?  To make it easy for you to adjust the recipe to cook as much as you need.  For every two people, add an additional bunch of bok choy, add 2 more tablespoons of sesame oil and wine, and  add 1 more tablespoon of sugar and soy sauce.

• To vary the recipe with more color or just to vary the taste if you want this bok choy often, add red cabbage or red onions or both. Add to the How much cabbage? A third of a head of cabbage per bunch of bok choy.  Three bunches=whole cabbage.  How much onion? Depends on how much you like onions. The onions in my picture are raw and are only a garnish.  Add your red onions to the hot oil 5 minutes before you add the bok choy.  If using cabbage, add your red cabbage to the oil 2-3 minutes before you add the bok choy.

•  To vary the texture, add roasted cashews!  Roast your cashews first. Preheat oven to 250 degrees.  Spread raw cashews on a baking pan. Add cooking oil spray and just a little salt. Roast 15 minutes.  Stir well and roast another 10 minutes. Allow to cool while you prepare the bok choy. Sprinkle over the cooked bok choy.  Yum!

• To get more bang for your buck out of those sesame seeds, toast them and add a wonderful flavor.  Put sesame seeds in a medium frying pan on medium low heat.  Shake them around in the pan until they darken and become fragrant.  Allow to cool and add to your cooked bok choy.

 Try our Black Tie Bok Choy and let us know what you think.  It's easy to make!