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Some years ago I went to Beijing for a business trip. My chinese hosts took me out for dinner to a restaurant called Green Tea (it was exactly this restaurant at this location).

Amongst many delicious meals I ate there, there is this one I am trying to remember the name and looking for its recipe.

The main ingredient was chinese cabbage or something similar. I think it was quite smaller than chinese cabbage. There was also soy sauce involved, garlic and it was a little spicy. No meat at all. It was served in a wooden bamboo bowl I think.

I hope there is someone who can tell me the name of this meal and the exact recipe. I would like to cook it at home.

PS: I already tried contacting my chinese hosts but without success.

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  • Was it Napa cabbage (en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napa_cabbage) or Bok Choi, aka Chinese cabbage (en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bok_choy) ?
    – King_llama
    Commented Jul 5, 2018 at 9:22
  • Round cabbage is the original type used as it is sweeter to balance out the saltiness of the dish, but bok choi can also be used in a pinch. Commented Jul 5, 2018 at 10:57
  • I think its a dish called dry pot cabbage... Posting more specifics in a while
    – xuq01
    Commented Jul 5, 2018 at 13:44
  • Hi, I am afraid we don't provide recipes here. You see what happens, you get a lot off wild guesses and a multitide of random recipes. There is one thing that may be done about your question: we do allow "restaurant mimicry" questions. See the rules here: cooking.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1551. Specifically, they are meant for us supporting you in reverse engineering the recipe. Nobody is going to be able to provide a recipe, mostly hints what to try, you will have to put the puzzle pieces together by recooking it multiple times until you get it right.
    – rumtscho
    Commented Jul 5, 2018 at 16:13

3 Answers 3

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I'm afraid that it is neither of the above. According to what I know about this restaurant (a major restaurant chain in China, in fact), most of its dishes are Szechuanese-inspired. Thus, my guess that what you ate was dry pot cabbage (i.e. hand-teared cabbage).

There is usually some pork (usually belly) in this dish, but a large restaurant like Green Tea might totally leave out the meat (or use very little meat such that you didn't get any), in order to control costs. If you can't get pork belly easily, try bacon (IMO it works even better). The other ingredients are typical Szechuanese fare: dried chili peppers, garlic, ginger, and perhaps some Szechuan peppercorn (if you like it).

Now, here's how you make it (a bit oversimplified):

  • Chop the cabbage, thinly slice the pork belly (or chop the bacon). Chop the garlic, slice the ginger, and lightly crush the chili peppers.
  • Heat the oil (not too much if you use pork belly, more if you don't), add the pork belly and brown it. Then, add the chili peppers (and perhaps the Szechuan peppercorn), garlic and ginger, as well as some soy sauce (and perhaps some cooking rice wine/sake). Use the highest heat available on your stove.
  • After the spices are fragrant, add the cabbage and stir fry at high heat for a short while. Finally, season with salt and perhaps MSG (if you have no objections for using that).

...and you should be fine. But if your stove isn't hot enough, the dish would probably not taste as well as what you remember.

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Not sure if the mod allows recipe request, but here goes...

Spicy Stir-Fried Cabbage

..with protein

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It very likely could have been Bok choy with garlic and oyster sauce which is a staple on many Chinese restaurant menus. Bok choy is smaller than napa cabbage and is naturally a little spicy/pungent. Oyster sauce has a similar umami flavour to soy sauce, and if it was in a stir fry then there was probably soy sauce too.

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