Chinese-Style Fried Napa Cabbage

Preparation

1. Wash the head of napa cabbage and pat it dry with a paper towel. When we cook white cabbage, we usually just peel off and discard the top leaves and don’t wash the head. In napa cabbage the outer leaves are the greenest, and they are worth using.

   

2. Cut the green onion tops, chili and garlic. Seed the hot pepper and slice it into rings across the pod. Slice the green onion tops with a knife as for a salad.

   In season, it’s worth adding young garlic to the dish. It’s tender and has a pronounced flavor. Young garlic can be chopped together with its soft, juicy sheath. You can also add dried chili pods to the dish.

   

3. Cut the cabbage. Trim off the bottom of the head, where the leaves are coarse and thick. Separate the head into leaves and cut them into large pieces, preferably on the diagonal. The pieces should be a size you can easily pick up with a fork or chopsticks. Cut out and discard any spoiled spots. We usually don’t use the inner part of the head.

   As I said, you can also cook Savoy or white cabbage.

   

Frying

4. Fry the onion, garlic and chili. Pour 1.5–2 tbsp of sesame oil into the wok and heat it over medium heat until it gives off a pleasant, characteristic aroma. At the same time, add the chopped green onion, garlic and all the chili, fresh and dried. Fry the vegetables, stirring, for 4–5 minutes.

   

5. Add the napa cabbage to the wok and fry over high heat. It’s important that the leaves have as few drops of water on them as possible, otherwise the vegetables will steam instead of fry. Toss the cabbage and vegetables and fry everything together, stirring, until the cabbage pieces are soft and the whole mass has “settled”. Stir fairly often: the wok is hottest in the very center, so try to keep the cabbage in the center where it gets the heat.

   

6. Prepare the frying sauce if you haven’t mixed it ahead. Pour 2 tbsp of black rice vinegar into a cup or small bowl. It’s a naturally fermented product sold in supermarkets. If you can’t find it, try replacing it with regular rice vinegar mixed with balsamic. The flavor will differ, but it will work. Add 1.5 tbsp each of water, light soy sauce and dark soy sauce. Add 1 tsp of sugar (5 g), brown if you like, and stir. Then add 1 tbsp of cornstarch (10 g) and stir again.

   

7. Pour in the sauce and fry until it thickens. Once the cabbage has settled a little, keep stirring it constantly and add the prepared sauce in a thin stream, continuing to fry. Gradually the vegetables and sauce will come together. The cabbage pieces will be soft but keep their shape. Usually the frying time after adding the sauce is 3–5 minutes. Thanks to the starch, the sauce will start to thicken noticeably, which is the signal that the dish is ready. Ideally the thick parts of the cabbage stay slightly crisp and the dish itself is as dry as possible.

   If you like, at the very end of cooking you can adjust the sour and spicy notes by adding the appropriate ingredients.

   

Serving

8. Take the wok off the heat and transfer portions of the cabbage fried with sauces to plates or bowls. Serve right away, while it’s still hot. Traditionally this dish is eaten with chopsticks. It’s tasty on its own and perfect for a vegetarian diet. And as a side dish for meat or poultry, it’s simply superb.

   

   Black rice vinegar is considered the key ingredient for this dish. It turns out that it is sold here, you just have to study the supermarket’s selection carefully. It’s worth making the cabbage fairly spicy, which is important. Dried chili pods won’t hurt in any case. The finished dish isn’t really hot. The heat is felt more in the aftertaste, and it is very mild.