Chinese leaf with vinegar sauce 醋溜白菜

Chu liu bai chai (cu liu bai cai) 醋溜白菜

Chu liu bai chai is a simple vegetarian dish, a well known Lu Chai 鲁菜 from Shandong 山東 region where it is famous for the production of good quality vinegar.

This stir fried Chinese leaf or napa cabbage main flavour is the vinegar to give it a sharp taste. The vegetable is stir fried briefly to keep it crunchy.

Ingredients:
About 600g Chinese leaf or Napa cabbage
few dried chillies, de-seeded and cut into small pieces
2 tsp Sichuan pepper, dampen with a little water or soak for few minutes. This is to prevent burning during frying and IMO gives out more flavour
2 clove garlic, chopped
a small piece of ginger, chopped
about 1 heap tbsp chopped spring onion (white part)
2 - 3 tbsp cooking oil

sauce:
2 - 2.5 tbsp Chinkiang vinegar or other good quality Chinese vinegar
1 tbsp sugar
0.5 tsp salt
2 tsp light soy
1 rounded tsp cornflour
1 tbsp water

Method:

1. Mix the sauce ingredients together.
2. Boil a pot of water, when boiling blanch Chinese leaf for about 1 - 2 min. Remove and drain.
3. While the vegetable is still hot, heat oil and fry the Sichuan peppercorns, when oil is fragrant remove peppercorns. Then fry the dried chillies till brown.
4. Add ginger, garlic and spring onion, stir fry briefly.
5. Add blanched vegetable stir till heated through. Add sauce stir till sauce has thicken. Done. There is not a lot of sauce at this point, but after transferring to a plate more vegetable juice will seep out to make the sauce.