Yau Choy is vegetable that is blanched and drained and served with oil, soy sauce, and oyster sauce dribbled over it. The name in this Cantonese dish means, plainly, “oiled vegetable.” But we love it.
We Cantonese do love our vegetables. In every meal, we have piles of greens washed and drained and waiting to be fried or blanched. Once, in Guangzhou, when the Americans in our office had a hotdog barbecue, the Chinese staff brought two huge trays of yau choy beautiful greens with that soy sauce dressing. That went quickly.
Every small wonton and congee eatery all over Hong Kong sell yau choy. Typically served in small dishes, most people could eat a whole plate, or two, by themselves. It’s not that much. The most common vegetable used is a Cantonese favorite, choy sum (Mandarin, cai xin), which is from the mustard family. I didn’t see this vegetable in Taiwan when I lived there. Other vegetables used are iceberg lettuce; gai lan, or Chinese broccoli or kale, which resembles the western kale; and tong choy, or water spinach.
Less commonly, some eateries serve the water spinach with a sauce made from fuyi, a pungent fermented soy bean, which has a strong, salty flavor. Fuyi is like an intense dose of the Japanese miso, but fermented. It’s an acquired taste.
All these vegetables are available in Asian supermarkets. Look for choy sum that are 7-8 inches long. Sometimes they come with skinny stems but I prefer those with stems the thickness of an average-sized asparagus.
Yau Choy
Serves 2-4
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes
¾ pounds choi sum (cai xin)
2 tablespoon cooked oil*
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon oyster sauce (optional)
When rinsing the vegetables, leave the stalks of vegetable in their 7-8 inch lengths. Neatly keep the stalks together.
In a 5 quart-pot, bring 2 quarts of water to boil. Hold the vegetables by the leaves and lower the stems first into the boiling water to cook stems slightly longer than leaves. After 30-40 seconds, lower leaves.
Blanch vegetables for 1-2 minutes until leaves turn dark green. Immediately remove from water with a sieve or pair of chopsticks. Allow water to drain and place vegetables on a plate.
Drizzle oil, soy sauce and oyster sauce over vegetables. Serve immediately.
NOTES
*Cooked oil: Oil which has been used to deep fry something–chicken, or fried garlic or shallot. This gives the oil flavor. Otherwise just use peanut or vegetable oil from the bottle.
Variations
In Singapore, we sometimes garnish the vegetable with deep fried shallots. Ready made deep fried shallots, from Thailand and Vietnam, are sold in plastic containers in Asian supermarkets here.
Other ingredients:
Make Yau Choy with these other vegetables–gailan, iceberg lettuce.
Glossary of Ingredients
Click here for more on:
Choi sum (cai xin)
Gailan
Oyster sauce
