my husband and i like stir frying and cooking asian (or at least asian inspired) foods such as sweet and sour pork/chicken, beef and broccoli, and lemon chicken. we typically just fix steamed white rice to go with it. but we'd really like some asian side veggies. and we have NO CLUE as to what to fix. we don't like water crest nor those little mini corns (plus i think those are really more for garnish anyway). ideas? recipes? also, please give me some taste relationship to veggies i know (i hate quite a few veggies so i would like an idea as to what it will taste like before i start cooking - i.e. like cabbage, like squash, etc). another complication - we aren't within a reasonable driving distance to an asian market.

thanks!

11/30/2005 1:27:32 PM

I don't have any advice, but I have to say that those little corns are definitely NOT for decoration. They're delicious!

11/30/2005 1:41:41 PM

http://www.yancancook.com/recipes/

11/30/2005 1:53:38 PM

Asian veggies:
Snow Peas (the kind of peas that are flat and in the pod but you eat)
String Beans (not green beans, much much longer)
Nappa Cabbage (regular cabbage will do)
Sliced carrots with stuff (more americanized chinese but so is everything you listed)
Bean Sprouts (fresh, not canned)
Mushrooms (tiny little asian ones, i dont know the name, normal ones will do).

All of these go well with asian food.
Cook them with your main dish if desired or stir fry seperately (except the cabbage).

The cabbage i've had steamed, which, is an aquired taste to say the least, but goes very well with soy-heavy meat dishes and you mix them together.

11/30/2005 2:00:58 PM

Quote :

"String Beans (not green beans, much much longer)"

they're the same thing.

but all good suggestions.

11/30/2005 2:08:52 PM

cool thanks for the suggestions. anyone had bak choi? what is it like?

11/30/2005 2:17:12 PM

a lot like cabbage

11/30/2005 2:19:19 PM

bamboo shoots and water chestnuts...the bamboo shoots take on the flavor of the dish, and the water chestnuts add nothing but crunchiness, but hey, I like them

11/30/2005 2:21:13 PM

bok choi is like tougher cabbage

its good though

I had a pile of brocolli, tofu and baby corn for lunch
it was good

11/30/2005 2:28:08 PM

those baby corns definitely AREN'T for decoration. they're great.

fun fact: did you know all corn used to be tiny? it was selectively bred to make it big

Quote :

"Maize was developed from a wild grass (Teosinte) originally growing in Central America (southern Mexico) 7,000 years ago. The ancestral kernels of Teosinte looked very different from today's corn. These kernels were small and were not fused together like the kernels on the husked ear of early maize and modern corn."

http://www.nativetech.org/cornhusk/cornhusk.html

[Edited on November 30, 2005 at 3:13 PM. Reason : .]

11/30/2005 3:11:12 PM

All green beans are long, the shit you buy in the cans have the tips cut off

11/30/2005 3:17:47 PM

Keep it simple, at first. I usually put in snow peas, sliced green & red peppers, mushrooms, and some leeks or green onion. I usually use sesame oil to do the stir fry in. You can try oil that has hot peppers in it, if you like it hot.

11/30/2005 3:27:49 PM

thanks!

^^^ok my chinese friend told me that... maybe in his area, it is for decoration but in others, it isn't. he is the one that suggested bok choi.

[Edited on November 30, 2005 at 3:33 PM. Reason : e]

11/30/2005 3:33:37 PM

try Chinese brocolli with oyster sauce (either stream or stir fried)

11/30/2005 5:07:31 PM

stray cats and dogs

11/30/2005 6:11:45 PM

You should have married asian, the food would have been easier to come by

11/30/2005 7:08:23 PM

11/30/2005 11:44:07 PM

Quote :

"String Beans (not green beans, much much longer)"

Quote :

"they're the same thing. but all good suggestions."

No.

Quote :

"All green beans are long, the shit you buy in the cans have the tips cut off"

hehe funny.

What LadyWolff is refering to are "chinese long beans," not your typical "green bean" or "snap bean."

Chinese long bean (aka yardlong bean):

BTW the beans in my pic are regular green beans. chinese long beans are too tough.

Quote :

"anyone had bak choi? what is it like?"

It's more bitter than cabbage. It really doesn't have a whole lot of flavor either. The stem-like center of the leaf is proportionally much wider and the leafy margin is much smaller than other cabbages (that's prolly why it's bitter).

Recipes...hmm...this works with anything and is basically the way you stir fry anything.
1-put finely chopped garlic into oil in a pan/pot/wok
2-wait til the garlic is almost brown
3-stick in whatever veggie you want
4-keep the food moving or it will burn (duh)
5-put in some soy sauce and oyster sauce
6-put in a few teaspoons of water mixed with tapioca flour (you have to mix ~1tsp of tapioca to 1tblspn COLD water before you start cooking). This will thicken the juices a little.

What I like to do is get a big pot, put in some water, then blanch some green beans. I blanch them first cause they're often too tough if I don't (I also do this with broccoli and chinese broccolli).
Drain the beans, push them to one side of the pot, put the other side of the pot in the middle of the stove.
Put in oil and garlic, wait til it starts to brown.
Throw in meat (Put a lil tapioca flour on the meat and rub it in first, it gives it better texture), add soy sauce, oyster sauce, and crushed red peppers.
Stir til done and you get what's in the above pic.

Forgot:
about taste relationships, you'll find many asian veggies to be bitter.
Bok choy and all the other cabbage-like variants tend to be bitter, chinese broccoli (which I believe is closely related to mustard) doesn't really taste like broccoli at all and is bitter. Water crest (queti I think you meant water chestnut in your first post) is a spinach-like leaffy vegetable and is somewhat similar. You can stir fry watercrest or put it in a soup.
Truthfully there aren't many other "asian" vegetables. I'm chinese and besides the veggies I've mentioned we (and every other asian I know) really only cook domestic veggies. Fresh veggies are another matter and I don't feel like typing a lot.

BTW, you can also try skinning then julianing (is that a word?) ginger, then stir frying that with some meat.

[Edited on December 1, 2005 at 12:23 AM. Reason : ]

12/1/2005 12:05:54 AM

Something else good to try, is after you steam the rice, put it in the pan you used to stiry fry everything in, throw some butter, and an egg in there, mix it up good on a medium to low heat and it's close to what they give you at those Japanese steak houses

12/1/2005 1:54:42 AM

i like general tso's chicken.

12/1/2005 3:52:57 AM

there is canned bamboo. you can found those in the grocery store. you can also buy mushrooms like shitake, oyster mushrooms at the grocery store too. they add to the texture,flavor, and asian-ness.

12/1/2005 8:39:14 AM

thanks a ton (esp fumbler). i'll try snow peas and green beans. i probably won't like bok choi since i hate cooked cabbage. what is tapioca flour? when we fix beef and broccoli we use baking soda so thicken it up. would that work with your recipe?

[Edited on December 1, 2005 at 12:26 PM. Reason : wait... or maybe we use cornstarch... shit i don't remember... aha]

12/1/2005 12:13:06 PM

i'll have to try the tapioca flour...we typically just use cornstarch and it works like a charm, but once that container runs out, i'm open to other methods

12/1/2005 12:17:32 PM

Quote :

"String Beans (not green beans, much much longer)"

Quote :

"they're the same thing. but all good suggestions."

Quote :

"No. What LadyWolff is refering to are "chinese long beans," "

string beans = green beans.
chinese long beans are something else.

12/1/2005 1:17:37 PM

Quote :

"Nappa Cabbage (regular cabbage will do)"

No it won't do, nappa cabbage is da bomb (my wife is chinese decent (ABC?Chinese)) Also bok choi is awesome.

12/1/2005 3:22:48 PM