As wonderful a cook as my Papa is, his culinary world is mainly comprised of ingredients of an American Fare nature. My mother, being of Irish family decent, is very much a "meat and potatoes" kind of girl and her taste was usually what drove most of our dinners growing up. Of course that didn't mean we went without some classic French techniques and the occasional Swedish influence (of my father's family), but let's just say bok choy was not a vegetable I grew up with.
Of course vegetables come in trends, like anything else, and where might one have gone for bok choy other than an Asian specialty market a few years ago. With the advent of TV stations like Food Network and the internet, chefs are challenged to keep home cooks coming back for more, which can mean new ingredients. Suddenly vegetables the average American had never heard of can be found at your "local mega mart" (to quote Alton Brown's phrase of choice) because consumers are demanding what they saw on Rachel Ray last week.
How did I become a fan of bok choy? Well, there is a charming farm store in Acton that I recently discovered and now frequent for my produce. They always have amazing looking fruits and vegetables that inspire me to cook. A few weeks ago I passed by their display of bok choy, which included three or four different kinds if memory serves. I couldn't help but buy some of the baby bok choy because it looked so delicious.
When I got home I had absolutely no idea how you prepare this vegetable. I headed to the internet for inspiration. I found a recipe for braised bok choy for which I had all the ingredients, and tried it out. Erik's response was "what is this?" at first, but was surprised at how much he liked it. I enjoyed it too. It was beautiful on the plate, a nice clean flavor and very pleasing texture. So, I decided to buy it again this week. This time I tried a slightly different recipe from Tyler Florence. It involves making a pan sauce for the bok choy after you've cooked it. There are some ingredients that might not be staples in your pantry (like sesame oil and oyster sauce) but I happen to have purchased some Asian additions not long ago and had everything on hand. The sauce was quite flavorful with fresh ginger, lemon juice and oyster sauce. You can search for baby bok choy on the Food Network website to find it if you're interested.
OMG Lamb, we're so glad you finally discovered the joy of the choy! Joe and I love baby bok choy, and Joe often sorta braises it simply with butter and serves it with fish or something like that. Once he even made it as a side with scrambled eggs, which as I recall was oddly yummy. I want to buy some oyster sauce, I've been seeing it in a lot of recipes and it looks good. Do you ever buy black sesame seeds? You should try sauteeing some snow peas in sesame oil and toss them with black sesame seeds, so good.
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