In my quest to recreate the dishes we had at New Si Chuan Garden and eat some healthy vegetables, last night I attempted to recreate their Boc Choy in Chicken Broth. I succeeded in creating something eatable and reasonably tasty, but it was not as flavorful as theirs was. One difference I noticed was I used a bit more chicken broth than they did. Also, it appears theirs was home-made broth and mine was from a box. So, of course their broth would be better and richer than mine. Mine is in the picture shown above.
Next time I am going to amp up the broth with the addition of some carrots, onions, celery and some bits of chicken. Also use more boc choy and less broth.
What I did, was prepare it the way that Danny the owner told me they did it. Boc Choy exudes a lot of water when it is cooked. You see this readily when you stir fry it. You have to keep pouring off the water or you will just wind up steaming it. What they do at the restaurant is par boil the boc choy in water seasoned with soy sauce. Osmosis will pull the water out and replace it with the salt from the soy sauce. Once the boc choy is tender, strain it and add it to the warmed chicken broth and bring that to a boil. I added a bit more salt and some white pepper to taste. I also added a touch of sesame oil. That was it. It was good but it would improve by using a rich home-made broth.
