Everything in moderation except bok choy
There are so many varieties of leafy greens in Chinese cooking. While this recipe is specifically for Stir-fried Bok Choy | 炒油菜, it actually works for any number of other veg options—pea vines, Chinese broccoli, water spinach—the list goes on.
My parents are big into cooking a lot of vegetables. A few years ago, at a routine check-up, my dad's blood sugar tested over 300. For context, normal blood sugar levels hover around 100. This meant he literally had sugar in his urine when he peed. It was a wakeup call for him.
Apparently when you've lived through the Great Chinese Famine, you have trouble monitoring your food intake when you now live in a world of excess. My mom likes to bring up how my dad can eat jam straight out of the jar in giant spoonfuls or take down full aluminum trays of baked goods from grocery stores. My dad would protest it's to make up for all the hungry days from his childhood.
Nainai would argue my dad had it easy. She tells me she snuck him a hard-boiled egg everyday because he was the youngest of her three sons. "An egg was a luxury in those times. Your Baba definitely had it the easiest." From my dad's memory, he starved every day despite that extra egg ration. The phrase "it's all relative" never cut so deep as when I imagine that difficult time in China.
Sadly, it's become harder and harder to deny that my dad literally ate himself to diabetes in his golden years. And that brings us back to bok choy—light, fresh, nutrient-dense, and easy to prepare. Start by washing them thoroughly.
Separate the larger outer leaves, taking care to wash the grime that can build up at on the stalk. Be sure to leave the center intact. Use a knife to remove the base and discard.
Get your other ingredients washed, prepped, and chopped—i.e. the ginger, green onions, and garlic. The next steps will go bing, bang, boom.
Heat up the oil in the pan and drop in the ginger. Bing.
Stir for about 20 seconds and then add the green onions, followed quickly by the bok choy. Bang.
Cook the bok choy while adding the rest of the ingredients. Stir briefly. Boom.
My dad can take down an entire wok full of bok choy single-handedly. Of things he can take down single-handedly, it might as well be bok choy than apple streusel cake. "Everything in moderation, Baba!" My mom and I would scold. But how can you really bear to withhold food when you imagine my dad's hungry four-year-old self, a hard-boiled egg grasped between tiny palms, relishing every bite.
For the straight-up Stir-fried Bok Choy recipe, click here.