What The Bok Bro! Working With Bok Choy

One of the things I’ve been doing recently is going to the grocery store produce section, picking out some random vegetable I’ve never heard of, and bringing it home to cook it up, to see if I like it. The latest veggie to hit my shopping cart is something called bok choy and I used it to create a pretty delicious dish. Here is what the bok is up with bok choy:

According to the internet, Bok Choy is a type of Chinese cabbage, the name meaning “white vegetable”. It kind of looks like white celery, with larger leaves at the top. I can’t even really describe what it tastes like, not very good on its own and raw, but I did find out what it is good for…stir fry.

Raw bok choy

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WASHING THE BOK CHOY

The bok choy I got from the grocery store was not exaclty clean looking. Perhaps it is because the white color makes everything stand out (crap, maybe I should be cleaning/washing my veggies better). I used a vegetable brush and scrubbed down each stalk and leaves under running cold water as best I could. (mine had a couple dead flies/bugs on it and lots of dirt…gross)

Brushing the bok choy clean with mr potato brush

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SEPARATING THE BOK CHOY

The first thing I cut was the end where all the stalks were attached, giving me something like 7-8 stalks of the vegetable. Once I had them separated individually, I cut off the leafy tops of each stalk, and placed the leafy part in one pile and the white stalk in another pile.

Separating the leafy part from the stalks on the Bok Choy

If you work with other greens, you know that the thick stems and the leafy parts have different cook times. The thick stalks require more time to become tender and the leafy parts cook up in seemingly seconds.

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CHOPPING THE BOK CHOY FOR STIR FRY

Now that you have 2 piles of parts, you can prepare them any way you would like. In this case, I was going to stir fry them, and just cut them into simple curved C-shaped pieces that were fairly thick. I think it was a good way to do it.

Chopping the bok choy stalks and leaves

The leafy part you can just do a rough cut or roll it up and cut it like a roll, just to get it into smaller, more manageable pieces that won’t overflow from the pan as much.

After the cutting is done you should have 2 piles of your ready to cook up bok choy.

Bok Choy separated into cookable pieces of leaves and stalks.

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I used my bok choy in a stir fry. It was included with mushrooms, gai lan (chinese broccoli), soy sauce, ginger, garlic and shallots. It was pretty delicious, and I liked the nice texture of the bok choy. I think it makes a better sidekick than something eaten alone and adding the mushrooms and gai lan was a good call.

Bok Choy Stir Fry with mushroom and gai lan