A question of cooking oil…

Gone are the days when I could have told you to get some high-quality lard and start cooking! This fat has become one of the “big bad boys” of healthful cooking and eating, but it’s also one of the most commonly used fats in rural China, where many farmers raise their own pigs and render their own lard. Camellia oil is also falling out of favor and is probably not even available here. In China, inexpensive soybean oil is making huge inroads.

In American, peanut oil is probably the best choice for cooking Chinese food, both for health reasons (the types of fats it contains) and because it has a very high smoke point (important for stirfrying!). Contrary to conventional wisdom, I don’t find it imparts any flavor to a dish. I did find a peanut/sesame oil mix that was interesting and had a very high smoke point, but did give some of its own flavor to the food. If you have peanut allergies, this certainly out, and you might want to consider refined soybean oil.

There are enormous environmental issues surrounding the monoculture of soybeans, corn, and other crops here in the States and, more and more frequently, abroad. Canola oil has also acquired a bad name for various reasons - if you Google the words canola oil, you’ll see it’s still being hotly debated. I haven’t seen much about the environmental impact of producing peanut oil - any comments here?

There is a bonanza of information available on the question of which cooking oil is the best choice for health and environmental reasons: On the topic of fats and oils, I have found EatingWell to be very informative (their nutritional information is backed up the by Nutrition Department at the University of Vermont). Care2 takes on the subject from the slightly different angle of green living. dLife approaches the topic from the perspective of the diabetic and is vetted by an impressive advisory board of MDs, RDs, and more. WebMD is also useful, although I do have an aversion to adhering exclusively to what medical doctors preach - somehow the conventional medical establishment reminds me a bit too much of the agribusiness giants! Certainly some of the information out there is more suspect than other - if you research on the internet, try to stick to sites that are not affiliated with a particular producer of the product you’re looking at, and look carefully at the “About” page, which will often disclose who makes up the advisory board, etc.

Stirfried Corn and Shrimp

With summer corn at its peak, here’s a quick and pretty dish for a light summer dinner. This is a particularly good dish for kids, many of the ones I know love corn and shrimp both. For information on buying sustainable seafood, check out the intro to the Stirfried Shrimp recipe.

ingredients:

• 12 oz shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 2 ears corn (or 1 c frozen, thawed corn kernels)
• 1/2 red bell pepper, seeded and cut into 1/2″ dice
• 2 scallions, cut on the diagonal or roll cut into 1/2″ sections
• 2 T oil

marinade:

• 1 egg white, well beaten
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 pinch white pepper (or black)
• 1 tsp cornstarch

sauce:

• 1 T Shaoxing cooking wine
• 1 T water
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cornstarch

method:

1. Combine the marinade ingredients. Make sure the shrimp is rinsed and patted dry, then mix it well with the marinade and let it rest at least 10 m, then drain off the marinade.
2. Combine the sauce ingredients.
3. Stand the corncob on one end in a large bowl, then cut the kernel tops off with a downward stroke. Don’t cut so deeply that you include the tough kernel bed - when you are done removing the kernel tops, use the back of your knife to press down hard and scrape the remaining pulp into a separate bowl. You can freeze this pulp to make soup, mix it into cornbread, etc. The cobs can be used to add flavor to broths.
4. Heat 1 T oil in the wok on high heat until it shimmers, then stirfry the shrimp until it turns pink and is firm to the touch, approximately 1-2 m. Remove it from the wok and set aside.
5. Heat 1 T oil on high until it shimmers, “explode” the scallions until just fragrant, add the red pepper and corn and stirfry until they are just tender - both should still be plenty crunchy.
6. Add the shrimp and sauce ingredients, stirfry quickly to cook out the starchy flavor.
7. Adjust seasoning and serve.

nutritional data:

For these calculations, I assume that 1/2 of the marinade ingredients are drained off and that 1/2 of the oil remains behind - not terribly scientific, but…. I also assume that this dish serves 4 as part of a larger meal.

As with most shellfish dishes, the nutrients of concern are sodium and cholesterol, but if you are careful with the accompanying dishes, these should balance out unless you have serious cholesterol/sodium issues. The beauty of seafood is its high ratio of lean protein to the calories you get, and this dish is no exception: the fat calories are below 1/3 of the total calories and the saturated fat is only 1/5 of the total fat, both of which are definitely good things if you’re trying to eat healthy.

You can play with the amount of salt and oil to make it even healthier, but remember that you will lose flavor, and you need to use enough oil to coat the food as it comes into contact with the wok, or it will steam rather than stirfry. For those who for health reasons “stirfry” with a splash of broth, this recipe will be more successful than most.

• Total calories 166, calories from fat 48
• Total fat 5 g, saturated fat 1 g
• Cholesterol 128 mg
• Sodium 295 mg
• Total carbs 10 g, dietary fiber 2 g, sugars 2 g
• Protein 19 g

Spinach with Ginger Dressing

When we lived in Chicago, our favorite Chinese restaurant was a place called Mandarin Chef, which later became known as Lao Sichuan (Old Sichuan). They serve a wonderful cold spinach “salad” as a first course, and that is what I am recreating here. If you have a juicer (I’m a huge fan and the lucky recipient of such a wonderful machine as a housewarming gift from a beloved - and very generous - friend), you can juice some ginger root to add to the ginger flavor. If you don’t have fresh spinach, thaw some frozen chopped spinach and squeeze it out well. This makes a great cold dish as part of a meal or a lovely light first course.

ingredients:

• 12-16 oz fresh spinach, washed and rinsed until no grit remains in the water

dressing:

• 1 - 2 T sesame oil, to taste
• 1 T ginger root, minced
• 1/4-1/2 tsp salt, to taste
• 1/2 tsp brown sugar

method:

1. Blanch and shock the spinach, then squeeze out well before chopping coarsely.
2. Lightly pull the spinach apart into a loose mound in a bowl.
3. Combine the dressing ingredients, pour over the spinach, and serve.

do ahead:

The spinach can be prepared and the dressing mixed up to a day in advance. Mix with the dressing just before serving.

nutritional data:

I used the minimum amounts called for of spinach, sesame oil, and salt, and I assume this recipe serves 4 as part of a larger or multicourse meal. You can tinker with reducing the sesame oil and salt even more, but you will sacrifice some of the flavor.

• Total calories 52, calories from fat 33
• Total fat 4 g, saturated fat 1 g
• Cholesterol 0 mg
• Sodium 212 mg
• Total carbs 4 g, dietary fiber 2 g, sugars 1 g
• Protein 2 g

Stirfried Mixed Mushrooms

At my local farmers’ market, there’s a vendor who specialized in mushrooms and another one who sells mainly herbs and salad greens, but yesterday had amazingly beautiful oyster mushrooms as well. If you are lucky enough to come upon some VERY fresh mushrooms like these - whether you’re foraging at the market or in the forest! - this is a super-quick way to create a simple side dish for dinner. Just about any type of mushroom will do: button, shiitake, oyster, crimini, enoki…. I would avoid portobello simply because they can discolor so much.

ingredients:

• 1/2 lb mixed mushrooms
• 1 T oil
• 1/4 tsp salt, more or less to taste

method:

1. Trim the mushroom stems, reserving for making stock. If the caps are dirty, brush lightly with a cloth (or mushroom brush if you’re into gadgets).
2. Cut the caps into quarters or “chopstickable” pieces.
3. Heat the oil in the wok over high heat until it shimmers.
4. Add the mushrooms, stirfry quickly to coat with the oil.
5. Add the salt, and continue to stirfry until the mushrooms are tender.
6. Adjust seasoning and serve.

nutritional data:

For these figures I used 4 oz of oyster mushrooms and 4 oz of shiitakes. Mushrooms tend to absorb a lot of oil (see the ratio of fat calories to total calories - it’s on the high side), so to reduce the calories, you could try using less, especially if you cook in nonstick cookware. I prefer to keep the amount at 1 T because I like the silky mouthfeel and shiny appearance that results from it.

• Total calories 51, calories from fat 32
• Total fat 4 g, saturated fat 1 g
• Cholesterol 0 mg
• Sodium 151 mg
• Total carbs 4 g, dietary fiber 1 g, sugars 1 g
• Protein 1 g

Braised Celery with Bamboo Beancurd

This is a flavorful, healthful, comforting dish that can be made quickly and easily from a very few ingredients. Chinese celery is more flavorful than ours, and the stalks are slightly more narrow and darker green. However, plain old celery is just fine for this recipe if you don’t live near an Asian market or farmers’ market that features an Asian produce vendor. Read more about bamboo beancurd here. If you can’t find bamboo beancurd, you can substitute cubed pressed or baked tofu, but try to find an unflavored variety. If you use water or vegetable broth, you can make this vegan.

ingredients:

• 3 oz bamboo beancurd
• 4 stalks celery, cut on the diagonal or roll cut into 1″ sections
• 1 T oil
  
• 1/2 tsp salt more or less to taste
• 4 T water or broth (low sodium, if canned)

thickener:

• 1/2 T cornstarch or tapioca starch
• 2 T water or broth

garnish

• 1/2 tsp sesame oil

method:

1. Soak the bamboo beancurd in warm water until softened - you may have to cut away the “bends” where it was hung to dry, as these sometimes just won’t rehydrate. Cut into 1″ sections.
2. Combine the thickener ingredients and set aside.
3. Heat the oil in a wok over high heat until it shimmers.
4. Stirfry the celery briefly to coat with oil, then add the beancurd sections and stirfry 1/2 m more.
5. Add the salt and liquid, bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.
6. Braise just until the celery is cooked, about 1-2 m - it should be bright green and still have a lot of crunch.
7. Add the thickener, and cook 1 m more to cook out the starchy taste.
8. Slide into serving bowl, garnish with sesame oil, and serve.

nutritional data

I used water rather than broth and assumed the recipe serves 4 as part of a larger meal for these figures. You could reduce the sodium even more by using less salt, but this dish does need a bit to have more flavor.

• Total calories 153, calories from fat 72
• Total fat 9 g, saturated fat 2 g
• Cholesterol 2 mg
• Sodium 325 mg
• Total carbs 4 g, dietary fiber 1 g, sugars 1 g
• Protein 5 g

Bamboo Beancurd

If you are looking to expand your tofu repertoire beyond the usual soft to firm varieties and baked or pressed beancurd, “bamboo beancurd” (also called “beancurd sticks” or fuzhu in Mandarin) is a terrific place to start. It is made by skimming the creamy film off a vat of heated soymilk, crumpling/rolling the “sheet” up, then hanging the rolls over a pole to dry. The result looks vaguely like a bamboo shoot, hence its poetic name.

Packaged, it looks like this:

This product’s most wonderful property is that the many tiny openings in the tubes suck up flavorful sauces and hold them in. As a result, it is used in many soups and vegetarian dishes, where in the hands of the great Buddhist monk-chefs it can become as flavorful as meat and also resemble meat’s texture.

The sticks will last forever (?) when stored airtight in a cool, dry place. To use, rehydrate in warm water until pliable, approximately 1 h. The places where the sticks are bent to hang may never properly rehydrate - just cut those away. Try this in Braised Celery with Bamboo Beancurd.

Stirfried (or Grilled) Shrimp

Eating shrimp (and most other seafood) these days is fraught with many ethical questions as we look at the depletion and destruction of our oceans, and naturally there are many loud voices on both sides of each question: to eat or not to eat? wild caught or farmed? etc., etc. If you are concerned with the condition of our environment and want to educate yourself further on the specific issue of eating seafood, I recommend a visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch website, where you will find a plethora of resources that will help you decide what to do. Another fine resource is a good old-fashioned fish monger, many of whom are starting to appear at local farmers’ markets in coastal areas. Of course, they want to sell their product, but they have a wealth of knowledge about the product’ origins, and they love to share their information if you catch them at a not-too-busy moment.

I like to make mindful choices about the food I consume and prepare for others, but I also don’t fall in the “all-or-nothing” category where food is concerned. Whenever possible, I buy sustainably raised or caught seafood and enjoy it - if my only choice is of uncertain origin and falls in the “avoid” column for sustainability, I would rather stick to vegetable-based meals (yes, I know, that’s a whole ‘nother kettle of fish, if you’ll excuse the play on words). So on with the recipe - btw, wild-caught pink shrimp from Oregon and spot prawns from British Columbia are the “best choice” in this category according to Seafood Watch.

The traditional method of cooking this dish calls for some intensive pre-preparation of shell-on shrimp: remove head and tail, remove legs, cut the shell down the back and devein. Leaving the shell on lends a lovely color and deeper flavor to this dish, but because I don’t like to eat with my hands and peel as I go (still working on the Chinese way of shelling shrimp in my mouth and then removing the shells delicately with chopsticks!) and I like to make stock from the shells, I’ve taken to peeling and deveining the shrimp for this recipe or just buying pre-cleaned shrimp for the ultimate in convenience.

ingredients:

• 1 lb raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 2 T oil
• 1 scallion, minced

marinade:

• 1 tsp ginger root, minced
• 1 T Shaoxing cooking wine
• 1 T sesame oil
• 1/2 tsp salt

method:

1. Combine the shrimp with the marinade ingredients and refrigerate for 1-2 h. If you go the traditional route and leave the shells on, you can go 2-4 h with the marinade process.
2. Heat the oil in the wok on high heat until it shimmers.
3. Add the shrimp and scallion and stirfry quickly until the shrimp turns pink and the cut from deveining splits open slightly (approximately 3 m for large shrimp). If the scallion starts to brown, reduce the heat a bit.
4. Remove the shrimp with a slotted spoon or strainer to the serving platter.

variation:

This makes a great grilled shrimp recipe - add 1 T oil and the scallion to the marinade and grill until the shrimp is pink and firm and the back splits open a bit. I find it easiest to do this on skewers.

nutritional data:

This recipe is healthful for those who aren’t too concerned with cholesterol - shrimp is naturally high in this area, so if you choose to make it, serve it with plenty of brown rice and some low-cholesterol vegetable dishes. For the nutritional data, I have included 1/2 of the marinade and 1/2 of the oil used, assuming that at least 1/2 of them will remain in the dish and wok during the cooking process. The figures are for 1/4 of the total yield of the recipe.

• Total calories 167, calories from fat 63
• Total fat 7 g, saturated fat 1 g
• Cholesterol 170 mg
• Sodium 323 mg
• Total carbs 1 g
• Protein 1 g

Eggplant in Garlic Sauce

After all these healthy recipes for making Chinese food at home are you still craving that saucy, garlicky, spicy eggplant dish found in most Chinese restaurants? The one that is called “eggplant in garlic sauce,” “eggplant Sichuan/Szechwan style” or some such?

Before you run out and indulge, consider the nutritional content of this dish when prepared in restaurants: Both WebMD and Nutrition Action put Eggplant in Garlic Sauce down for 1000 calories and 2000 mg sodium for a dinner-size dish of the stuff! Yes, but you’d share that plate, right? At Panda Express, the Eggplant and Tofu in Garlic Sauce will set you back 180 calories and 690 mg sodium for one 5.5 oz serving. That’s a lot of calories for a vegetable and approximately 30% of the sodium recommended for an average HEALTHY adult to take in daily.

Try making this at home in a healthier fashion and you’ll be just as satisfied! I’ve changed the cooking method from shallow-frying the eggplant to steaming it - this not only eliminates the fat it absorbs, but it also makes the preparation much faster and less labor-intensive. To make it even healthier, you can leave out the sesame oil and use low-sodium soy sauce and water in place of the broth, although you will lose some of the authentic flavor that way.

ingredients:

• 1 lb eggplant - Japanese, Chinese, globe…they’ll all work.
• 2 tsp vinegar - Chinkiang is nice, but rice wine or cider will substitute nicely.

sauce:

• 3 cloves garlic, smacked, then cut into small chunks
• 1 T ginger root, peeled and minced
• 1 T hot chili sauce, Sichuan if you can find it or Sriracha
• 2 T soy sauce - if you have light and dark, use 1 of each.
• 2 tsp brown sugar
• 1/3 c broth (low-sodium if canned) or water

thickener:

• 2 tsp cornstarch or tapioca flour
• 2 T water

garnish:

• 1 scallion, minced
• 1 tsp sesame oil

method:

1. If you are using a rounder eggplant, cut it into 2″ cubes. You can cut long, skinny Japanese and Chinese eggplants into 1″ thick rounds, or you can roll cut.
2. Place the eggplant in a heatproof dish and steam until tender, approximately 10-20 m, but not too soft - a knife should easily pierce it but not mush it in the process.
3. Combine the thickener ingredients and set aside.
4. Combine the sauce ingredients in a wok and bring to a rolling boil, reduce to a simmer and cook for 5 m, uncovered.
5. Add the eggplant and vinegar and stir gently from the bottom to coat with the sauce.
6. Heat through, then add the thickener, still stirring very gently. Cook 1-2 m to get rid of the starchy taste.
7. Slide onto a serving plate and garnish with scallion and sesame oil.

variations:

This sauce can be used to cook tofu - just cube firm beancurd up and replace some or all of the eggplant with it. For some texture variation, you can add sliced bamboo shoots or water chestnuts.

nutritional data:

I am assuming that this dish will serve 4 as part of a multi-dish meal. These figures are based on the recipe being made with water (not broth) and 1 T each of the light and dark soy sauces. You’ll see the sodium is very hard to reduce, but serve with plenty of brown rice and a vegetable dish not made with soy sauce, and things can balance out.

• Total calories 63, calories from fat 12
• Total fat 1 g, saturated fat 0 g
• Cholesterol 0 mg
• Sodium 556 mg
• Total carbs 12 g, dietary fiber 4 g, sugars 5 g
• Protein 2 g

“Pledge Compassion”

For those of you interested in eating more ethically, I encourage you to check out the Humane Society of the United States’ All Creatures Great and Small campaign, which is running a challenge for October. From their site:

All Creatures Great and Small, a campaign of Animals & Religion, aims to raise awareness about our responsibilities to all animals including those raised for food. In recent decades, agriculture has taken a harsh turn and animals on factory farms are treated like mere objects. Eating is an activity that has moral and spiritual significance. Take a pledge to make more humane food choices for the month of October.

Asparagus with Oyster Mushrooms

Asparagus is definitely going out of season by now, and if you live where it’s being imported from South America, save your money and this recipe until next spring. But if you are lucky enough to find some fresh, locally grown asparagus, make it quick - before time runs out! This is a delightful dish with a light, clean flavor which is enhanced by the natural “msg” found in mushrooms.

ingredients:

• 1/3 lb fresh oyster mushrooms
• 1/2 lb asparagus
• 1/2 T oil
• 1/2 tsp salt

method:

1. Cut off the tough stems of the mushrooms, leaving the tender part intact. If the mushrooms are large, cut into halves or quarters.
2. Snap off the ends of the asparagus stems where they break naturally. If the stalks are thicker than a pencil, peel the stem end with a vegetable peeler or paring knife.
3. Blanch and shock the asparagus, then roll cut or cut into 1″ sections.
4. Heat the oil in a wok over high heat until it shimmers.
5. Add the mushrooms and stirfry gently for 1/2 m.
6. Add the asparagus and stirfry until it is crisp-tender.
7. Season to taste with salt and serve.

do ahead:

The asparagus can be blanched, shocked, and cut up to 1/2 day ahead of time.

nutritional data:

• Total calories 44, calories from fat 17
• Total fat 2 g, saturated fat 0 g
• Cholesterol 0 mg
• Sodium 299 mg
• Total carbs 5 g, dietary fiber 2 g, sugars 2 g
• Protein 3 g