You can achieve that irresistible savoriness of wok hei, even without a wok.
When I’m in restaurant critic mode, I often look around the dining room to determine the best seat in the house. But it’s not obvious. Think of the cookbook author Grace Young, who grew up dining around San Francisco’s Chinatown with her father: They always sat as close to the kitchen as they possibly could, so they could eat their food still hot from the wok.
They were seeking out wok hei, a Cantonese word for the mouthwatering aroma of wok-seared foods — deeply savory and smoky. The irresistible, ephemeral aroma comes from the wok itself, or, more precisely, from the flames curling up and around the wok, and tickling the fat inside it. So the smokiness of wok hei is just as vivid, habit-forming and powerfully delicious in vegetarian dishes.
Cantonese restaurant chefs produce it using incredibly powerful wok ranges, but even if you don’t have that kind of set up, you can still get some of that smokiness at home. Trust Genevieve Ko, who has a simple, smart technique for stir-frying without a wok — cooking brussels sprouts and garlic in a very hot skillet — which results in what she describes to her daughter as “sort-of wok hei.” Ha!
A blow torch can help do the job, too. J. Kenji López-Alt writes about hacking the technique to make lo mein with shiitake mushrooms and vegetables, including mung bean sprouts, Napa cabbage and carrots. And the same technique can apply to a dish of single-subject, smoky stir-fried greens, like bok choy, choy sum or gai lan. It’s an easy, foundational side dish, and it can be endlessly rewarding: smoky greens with scrambled eggs on rice, smoky greens and beans on buttered toast, smoky greens with rice noodles and chile crisp. Smoky greens forever.
If you do have a wok — one of my favorite pieces of kitchen equipment — you can of course use it to follow these recipes. And if you still need a bit of convincing, read Grace Young’s wonderful 2004 cookbook, “The Breath of a Wok” and J. Kenji López-Alt’s newest book, “The Wok: Recipes and Techniques.”
Stir-Fried Brussels Sprouts
One More Thing
I love hearing about how recipes work in real life, and over on Twitter I saw a cool, vegetarian version of Simone Tong’s Yunnan-style rice noodles. In the version we published on New York Times Cooking, rice noodles, pickled vegetables and ground pork are dressed in vinegar and chile oil, with tons of fresh herbs and peanuts on top. Martha, a home cook in Oakland, made a quick, tasty meat sub out of firm tofu (which she pressed first!) and mushrooms.
Thanks for reading The Veggie, and see you next week!
Email us at theveggie@nytimes.com. Newsletters will be archived here. Reach out to my colleagues at cookingcare@nytimes.com if you have questions about your account.
"vegetable" - Google News
March 25, 2022 at 12:00AM
https://ift.tt/bn6IRcg
The Secret to Smoky Vegetables - The New York Times
"vegetable" - Google News
https://ift.tt/53cF6QK
https://ift.tt/OjGIMeW
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "The Secret to Smoky Vegetables - The New York Times"
Post a Comment