30. Chinese stir fried mange-tout

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清炒荷兰豆

.....Ok, probably it is enough of those dishes that take long to prepare, so let's go back to ‘quick fix’ for weekday dinner plate ---- Stir fried mange-tout.

Mange-tout in Chinese cuisine

It’s funny that mange-tout in Chinese is actually called ‘Holland beans’(Helan Dou)-- just by the sound of it, it is already very ‘foreigner..’. :)) It was only introduced to Northeast cuisine around .. 20 years ago, maybe?

In most Chinese dishes, there are usually one main ingredient and several ‘supporting’ ingredients. Mange-tout was only played one of those ‘supporting roles’ at the beginning. Only later, people started trying it in different recipes.

One of the highly recommended recipe is this ‘plain stir-fry mange-tout’ (qing chao he lan dou). It is said that this way of cooking is best to increase your appetite, especially given it low in calories, and rich in Vitamin A and Vitamin C and a good source of fibre and thiamin, not to mention its crunchy and juicy taste --- definitely a recommended dish. I only just started liking it in the very recent years.

The recipe: Stir fried mange tout

This recipe is very simple, stir fry mange-tout with garlic influence --- not much of a typical ‘Northeast dish’, it is quite common across all kinds of regional Chinese cuisines. Carrot is just me want to give it a bit additional ‘colour’ in the dish.

Normally, before the actual stir-frying, mange-tout can be quickly boiled in water or light fried in oil, but also can do this way which I cooked. The difference is if you ‘pre-prepare’ it, then you can stir-fry it quickly on very strong fire, otherwise, if you are like me stir-fry it straight away, you need to lower the fire, let it get cooked in the wok for a little bit longer.

Anyway, here is the ‘recipe’.

Ingredients

Mange-tout, carrot, garlic, cooking wine, oil, salt, vegetable/mushroom essence or MSG

Preparing

1) Chop around 4 gloves of garlic into small pieces.

2) Clean the mange-tout, it is
better if get rid of the ‘stem’ from the side edge, it can disturb the chewing. :))

3)Chop one carrot into slices.

Cooking:

1) Place the wok on strong fire, and pour in around 4 - 5 tablespoons of oil.

2) When the oil gets very hot, put chopped garlic in.

3) When the garlic’s smell comes out, then put sliced carrot and cleaned mange-tout into the wok, stir fry.

4) Put in 1 tablespoon of cooking wine, 2/3 teaspoon of salt, lower the fire to medium, keep on stir-frying. (Don’t cover the lid, even it can speed up the cooking time, otherwise, the mange-tout will loose the ‘freshness and crunchiness’, as well as the lively green colour.

5) Keep on stir-frying for further 5 minutes. (If you don’t like it too crunchy, pour in a few drops of water, and keep in the wok for a bit longer).

------ Then take it into a plate, serve!!

After cooking, don’t expect it like other dishes - soft, and with strong seasoning influence, on the contrary, it is still light, crunchy, even a little bit ‘raw’.

I like plain rice to go with it, light beer is also great combination. By no means, it is definitely one of the healthy treats for the day. :))