110. Simple recipe: stir fried garlic bolt with tofu and carrot

Chinese stir fried garlic bolt with tofu

A ‘late night’ recipe. :))) Well, at least, it is late over here in England. And I only just started writing today’s post. What have I been doing the whole day? I blame time passes too fast. A bit reading, a bit housework, a bit writing, a bit watching the sun and doing nothing, oh and eating, and cooking dinner, then that is a day. Feel a bit weird of just thinking of cooking at this late night. :))

Ok, as I said in yesterday’s post, today I will talk about a recipe with garlic bolt, simply stir fried with tofu and carrot. It is really really simple, can be cooked within 5 mins. And the method -- is a real typical stir-fry.

As I said in the previous post, I think if you cannot find garlic bolt, Spanish ‘ajos tiernos’ is a good replacement. As for the tofu, it is different to the normal fresh tofu I normally use. This one is called ‘tofu gan’ in Chinese, as in ‘dried tofu‘. Sometimes, it is also called  ‘pressed tofu‘. It normally comes in two flavors: plain and five spices flavor. I would like to use plain ones, but I only found the spiced ones in the supermarket; they also do a great job. But what I wanted to say is that you don’t have to particularly look for this ‘dried beancurd’ if you want to try this recipe; most of the tofu you can buy in regular supermarkets is also good, as such tofu is normally very very very firm, or just braised.

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Commom ingredient: Garlic bolt

Chinese garlic bolt

Image source: http://www.hometownseeds.com/herb-seeds-c-3?zenid=f80c01c47632e02eaacc3043380cf391

Garlic bolt is a very common ingredients in Chinese cuisine. But because it is mostly suitable for simple stir-fried dishes, it is not usually served in big or fancy restaurants. It is also not easy to find here in UK supermarkets. In most Chinese supermarkets, however, you can get them at reasonable price, and they are normally imported from China.

My husband has suggested that I should only share some recipes with common ingredients which can be easily found in normal supermarkets, so I have held the recipes with garlic bolt for a long while. (But it is one of my favorite vegetables, I could not wait to share!) This time I got encouraged by a Spanish friend. When we were in Spain for Xmas holiday, we decided to invite some friends over for a homemade Chinese meal. I wanted it to be very ‘Chinese’, so we went down to the Chinese supermarkets in Valencia. I was so excited to find garlic bolt, so needless to say, immediately grabbed a bunch. Guess what, although I cooked several ‘more sophisticated’ dishes, the simple stir-fried garlic bolt dish was the favorite of our friends.

Garlic bolt in Chinese is called ‘Suan tai’ or ‘Suan hao’ in some of the Northeast regions. It is said that it part of the stem of garlic flower. It does taste ‘garlic..ish’, but not strong, rather fresh and pleasant. It is very nutritious: rich in fiber, vitamin A, vitamin B2, vitamin C, calcium, etc. In Chinese medicine, it is said that garlic bolt has properties for controlling lipids, preventing coronary heart disease, and it is also good for sterilizing, relieving hemorrhoids…

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Common ingredient: Garlic

If you have been reading my recipes here, you have probably already seen so many dishes with garlic. As I mentioned in another post, the taste and smell of garlic is used as one of the main influences in Chinese dishes along with ginger and spring onion.

Garlic in Chinese Cooking

Garlic in Chinese is called “suan (4)’, sometimes “da suan” in northeast China, as ‘big garlic’. It has been one of the most essential components of Chinese dishes -- functioning more like a seasoning.

If you walk into any home kitchen in the China, you will always see some garlic prepared for cooking. I remember in the past, most families would buy garlics in a whole branch, which were hung in the kitchen. When garlic was needed for cooking, people would just pick up one, so they were still ‘fresh’. Although nowadays scenes like this are rare to see, I have seen the same thing in Spain - branches of garlic hanging in the shops, restaurants, markets… I just totally lost in the culture, place, time...

Anyway, so since I learned to cook, my dad told me the use of the garlic from the very beginning. In northeast China, we always use fresh garlic for cooking, whereas in the south, dried garlic is often used.

When cooking, garlic is normally sliced, and always needs to be in contact with oil first, to influence the oil, thus also the rest of the ingredients. It is just as most recipes I mentioned - put the wok on the fire, when the wok is very hot and dry (if you just washed it), add the oil into the wok, and when the oil is hot, put sliced garlic into the oil - when the garlic is ‘cooked’, the smell of the garlic comes out, and adds to the rest of the ingredients.

Even when making soup, (garlic is normally used for meat soup), garlic still needs to be ‘cooked’ first, before adding the water.

Northern Chinese people often use the spiciness of garlic to accompany dumplings, or ‘baozi’ - things with fillings, for example the dip I made for the dumplings, sometimes with noodles as well.

It is also common to use the properties of garlic to prevent food poison, for example, when having seafood, it is always recommended to have some garlic with it.

Well, of course it will leave you with some smell, :( one of the knacks is to have some tea or chew some tea leaves. There is another way have garlic is to have ‘pickled’ garlic. It might loose some healthy benefit compare to the fresh one, but still good.

In northeast China, entering the coldest time of the year, it is custom to make ‘la ba suan’, means the garlic on ‘8th December’ in Chinese calendar. Garlics are peeled, and gloves are placed into a sealed bottle, filled in with a bit sugar, salt and lots of rice vinegar. Normally it takes a week or two to get it ready, the garlic will even turn ‘blue’ or ‘greenish’. The garlic will not be as spicy as it was, and not very sour either, but the vinegar will be very ‘garlic spicy’, they both become very good to have dumplings with.

Nowadays, Chinese use garlic as natural anti-biotic as well, isn’t it said that after the whole ‘sars’ thing, the price of garlic has been keeping on increasing.

I probably never appreciated garlic before, but I do now, no matter which way it is prepared. Lately, my favorite way is when my mother-in-law cooks them in the Spanish rice dish. The garlic becomes so soft and ‘mashy’ - the best. Oh, and the Spanish garlic mayonnaise, if I did not know when ‘fat’ it can be, I could just continue eating it with every dish. :)

It is always good to have garlic, no? Especially for its healthy benefits? Oh, also there is a very old saying that hanging garlic and eating garlic can prevent you from ‘weird’ stuff -- you know what I mean. :) :) I have just bought a few - to be cooked. :)

Spring onion, ginger and garlic in Chinese cuisine

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Spring onion, ginger and garlic in Chinese cooking

Another common way of stir-frying Northeast Chinese dishes is using the taste of spring onions, ginger and garlic to influence the dishes. If you get into any household in North China, you can easily find these three items on the kitchen shelves. Nowadays, people can buy the fresh vegetables in the market whole year long, but before, twenty years or thirty years ago, in winter, because of the very cold weather in North China (-30˚c the coldest :0), it was difficult to find fresh seasonal vegetables apart from winter grows. So most families would stock up some vegetables including lots of ‘big spring onions’. (They look similar to leeks, but taste is more like spring onions, easy to stock than small spring onions.)

Anyway, with the strong and distinguish taste of these three items, they are the nature ingredients comparing those powders in little jars. :)) Normally, they are well chopped, and put into heated oil, wait until the smell comes out, (at this point, the oil is flavored as well), put the rest of food in for stir-frying.

However, the way they influence the dishes depends on when you put them in. For instance, if you put the spring onion at the very beginning (in heated oil), the flavor would influence the whole dish (in this case, normally it is the part of the white stem being used);  if you put it in when you finish or almost finish the cooking, then the freshness and sharp smell of the spring onion will not be mixed into the dish, but remain ons the top (in this case, it is the green part of the spring onion used). … Am I talking sense?

Almost every dish can have these three items in for enriching the flavor, but personally, I like to have garlic with green vegetables, spring onion with light stir-fried the dish, and ginger with fish and meat dishes. :)