Monday, December 13, 2010

Stir Fried Crunchy Cabbage


I loved crunchy and sweet cabbage.  I finally found the way after all these years.  I saw it at the Chinese cooking show where the host said never to cut the cabbage but tear it with your fingers.  It will give you a different texture.  But I guess I always took the easier way out, that is to slice it with a knife and thinking that shredded cabbage will cook faster and soften easily.  Not sure why but my shredded cabbage never really gives me the sweetness of the cabbage and the crunch that I looked for.

But now with my new way of handling my cabbage, that is to tear it with my fingers, I found the crunch and the sweetness of the cabbage when stir-frying.  This dish is delicious, you can taste the sweetness of cabbage and the crunchiness.  If you read my recipes, you must have noticed that I have been using quite a lot of fish sauce recently.  I think I found the secret of fish sauce in stir-frying, it really give certain dishes a kick in taste.







Ingredients:

1/4 head of cabbage. washed and tear with hands
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
1/8 cup of dried shrimps, soften
1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
6 extra large shrimps, shelled and cut into half
Fish sauce to taste
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. chicken powder (optional)
Extra virgin olive oil/ olive oil/ any cooking oil

Method:

1.  Heat the wok.  Add oil, when hot, add dried shrimps and garlic, stir-fry for a while.  Add shrimps and stir-fry until cooked.  Move the shrimps to the side of the wok, add in the crushed red pepper flakes and cabbage.

2.  Stir-fry well.  Add salt and stir-fry for a while.  Lastly add 1 tsp. chicken powder and fish salt to taste.  Add a little water (1/8 cup if needed). Serve hot.

11 comments:

daphne said...

I agree with the use of fish sauce! I like to add lemon juice and abit of sugar when using fish sauce too- i even used it in salad dressing!

This certainly make cabbage a more interesting dish!

tigerfish said...

Cos you can never be uniform in cabbage pieces(size) if you tear them so the overall texture has some crunch cos some bigger pieces do not cook tender as fast as the smaller pieces?

Ju (The Little Teochew) said...

Yes, I love fish sauce in cooking! I heard about tearing vs cutting and that is what I do too. I can happily eat plain rice and your stir fried cabbage!

Unknown said...

ehehe I am really the lazy cook...I slice them thin to cook faster :D

Bakericious said...

this is one of my favourite veggie!

Smoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home) said...

Good job! Thanks for sharing your tip on tearing the cabbage :D Can't wait to try it out for myself!

Peggy said...

i used to be scared of fish sauce because of the funky smell, but after using it more and more in a lot of the dishes I cook, i absolutely love it!

Noob Cook said...

I don't know why the only way I can eat stir-fried cabbage is to slice it very thinly... but yours look good!

Beachlover's Kitchen said...

hmmm I didn't know that to use hand to tear the cabbage it's will make the vege taste sweeter...I know that it's not adviseable not use knife to cut lettuce bcos to prevent lettuce from turning to brown color and can keep more then couple of days,just tear wt hands..

homeladychef said...

Stir-frying with fish sauce is a good idea. Will try it tomorrow!

Mari Nuñez said...

Looks wonderfully delicious! I will try this recipe for sure. Thanks for sharing it.