Broccoli Stem Stirfry

If you tend to have leftover broccoli stems, don’t toss them! We tend to use the crowns down to the main stem for a green vegetable with western meals, but that leaves us with quite a lot of long stems. These can be cut into “matchsticks” and stirfried into a delicious vegetable (or meat) dish.

ingredients:

• 3-4 broccoli stems
• 1/2 red bell pepper
• 1 T oil
• 1 clove garlic, sliced
• salt, to taste

method:

1. Peel the broccoli stems and  cut into 1/8 x 1/8 x 1.5″ matchsticks.
2. Cut the bell pepper into 1/4″ dice.
3. Heat the wok over medium-high heat, then add the oil just until it shimmers.
4. Add the garlic and explode just until fragrant.
5. Add the broccoli and red pepper and stirfry just until crisp-tender, approximately 2-3 m.
6. Season to taste, then serve.

variation:

• If you want to use some meat in this dish, a bit of diced bacon or ham cut into strips makes a nice addition. If you use bacon, you should cook the bacon first, then remove it to drain some of the fat. You can either use the bacon fat to stirfry the vegetables or dump it out and use oil. If you use ham, add it at the very end of the cooking process, just to heat it through. In either case, you’ll need to use less salt.

Stirfried Ham & Tofu with Chinese Chives

We’ve gotten some lovely ham from our local meat supplier, Back Forty Acres, (looking forward to the bounty of the 1/2 hog that’s on its way this month!) and we’ve started to use it more and more for stirfrying.

Chinese (or garlic) chives, jiucai in Mandarin, are available in Asian markets and at farmers’ markets that have vendors of Asian produce. The look like a long, flattened version of our chives. When fully grown they are not hollow at the center and sometimes have buds at the tips (which you can just add to the stirfry). If you can’t find them, you can substitute the more commonly found chives (reduce the cooking time) or scallions cut into thin 2″ long strips. The flavor won’t be identical, but it will be tasty all the same.

Pressed beancurd, called doufu gan (sort of translates into “tofu jerky!”) is literally tofu that has been pressed to squeeze out excess moisture. The result is a firmer texture that some people compare to meat, although the flavor is of course different. Pressed tofu comes in a variety of flavors – the most common one for this dish is five-spice, which has a dark, slightly smoky exterior and an off-white center. You can easily substitute baked tofu, now readily available in most conventional markets, for this ingredient. For this dish, try to find a block that is unflavored and relatively moist – the ham is the dominant flavor ingredient here.

Leftovers? This stirfry is excellent mixed into Fried Rice.

ingredients:

• 3 oz smoked ham, cut into 1/2″ cubes or matchsticks
• 3 squares pressed beancurd or baked tofu (unflavored)
• 4 oz garlic chives (or use 2 oz chives or 4 scallions as mentioned above)
• 1/2 red bell pepper, cut into 1/4 x 1.5″ strips
• 1 T oil
• 1/4 tsp salt, or more to taste

method:

1. Rinse the beancurd under hot water to remove some of the oil, then pat dry.
2. Slice the beancurd 1/8″ thick, then cut the slices into shreds approximately 1.5″ long.
3. Wash the chives well and cut into 1.5″ lengths – you can keep the buds intact if there are any.
4. Heat the oil in the wok just  until it shimmers.
5. Add the tofu and stirfry to coat with the oil and heat through.
6. Add the chives and red pepper strips and stirfry gently until the vegetable just wilts but is still bright green.
7. Add the ham and stirfry to heat through.
8. Adjust seasoning, then slide onto the serving plate.