Last night, I wanted to make something with that choy sum I harvested from just 2 plants, and looked in Seriouseats, to see if there were any broccoli recipes with mushrooms (I also have a lb of 'shrooms in the fridge). Choy sum is not something I'm expecting to see recipes for, but it's another flowering brassica, so I checked broccoli. Then I found a recipe I made a few years ago, that was really good, so I based it on that - I'll have to use the mushrooms another time. Here's the original recipe, and I used a bunch of choy sum, as you can see, and a little less than 8 oz. of bean thread noodles.
I realize now I have kind of a thing for Chinese five-spice powder. Its combination of spices rescues nearly everything it touches, and certainly works wonders for this Chinese Five-Spice Noodles with Broccoli recipe I found on Fresh 365. Some...
www.seriouseats.com
The bean threads I simply soaked in not quite boiling water, while prepping the other ingredients. The leaves I cut the stems from, and cut them into about 2x1/2" pieces. The flowering sections I chopped fine, and those stems into about 1/2" pieces, which gave good crunch to the dish. Not as strong as broccoli, but definitely stronger than bok choy. I only cooked this 3 minutes, before adding the bean threads, and added about a tb of dark soy sauce in that last minute. This, and a tb instead of 2 tsp chili paste (as always, I increase this!) was all I did different from that recipe, plus the different greens.
The choy sum from 2 plants, leaves chopped about 1/2x2", stems into 1/2" pieces, and flowering parts chopped fine. by
pepperhead212, on Flickr
Ingredients lined up, other than the noodles - onions, garlic, carrots, shallots, vegetable broth, with some soy, ginger, 5-spice, and sesame oil mix. by
pepperhead212, on Flickr
After cooking the onions until golden, and adding the garlic, cooking a minute, then adding the remaining ingredients, before the noodles and scallions. by
pepperhead212, on Flickr
Finished dish, after tossing the cellophane noodles and scallions over med-high heat, before adding a little dark soy, and chopping noodles some. by
pepperhead212, on Flickr
Served bowl of choy sum, with cellophane noodles and 5-spice seasoning. by
pepperhead212, on Flickr
Funny thing - just Saturday I tweaked my 5 spice powder mix, because I had gotten some that needed more star anise, and didn't even have any pepper or Szechwan peppercorns in it! And the star anise I had was ancient, so I had to get a fresh batch, and when I got it yesterday, I ground some up, added it to that 5 spice batch in a bowl, and added some finely ground Szechwan peppercorns, until it was well balanced, put some in the jar I keep it in, and vacuum sealed the rest in a bag, to refill the jar from, later on.