Shanghai Choy and Steak

Going to Super 88 - the Asian supermarkets in various locations around Boston - is always an adventure. They've got LIVE tilapia, catfish, eels and Dungeoness crabs - all of which they'll gladly make un-live for you. They've got neverending aisles of teas, sauces, and candies - as well as dried everything! In the meat section, you'll find jellyfish, rooster testicles, head-on poultry, entire roasted baby pigs, and just about every other part of any edible animal.

We love going there, especially for produce because you can find almost any veggie out there and usually you get better prices than at your supermarket. This time around, we picked up some nice sirloin strips for an unbeatable price, and then hunted for a sidedish.

I was immediately drawn to the choy section... near the Bok Choy which I was familiar with was something called Shanghai Choy - and it looked awful cute - so we took a bunch home and decided to look it up later. Apparently, Shanghai Choy is lighter green than Bok Choy and has less moisture, but to be honest I don't know if I could tell the difference. They key to cooking choy is rinsing it very well. I chopped off roughly 1 inch of the bottom of the bulb (I had 3 bulbs), thereby separating all the leaves. After several rinses and water changes, I spun them in my salad spinner and cut the leafy parts of the stems. I thinly sliced the stems, and coarsely chopped the leaves.



I started some olive oil in a large pan and sauteed some garlic with the stems for about 5 minutes after which I added about 1.5 cups of chopped portabello mushrooms to the pan with a few squirts of fish sauce, 1 dash of five spice, some squirts of Sriracha, and half a cup of veggie stock. After another 5 minutes, in went the leaves and a cup and a half of bean sprouts with a couple dashes of soy. I finished it off by cutting of little bits of Chinese chives into the pan (milder than run-of-the-mill chives in my opinion).


(can you tell we like this stuff?)

And that was it! I served it up with that steak that we had marinated in white wine, sriracha, and some red pepper flake and then quickly grilled. Wonderful flavors, very easy to make, and - as always - an adventure!