Steamed Pak Choi with Sesame and Soy [#230]

Scarcely a recipe, yet I wouldn't have tried it this way if I hadn't come across it in Ching-He Huang's book. You simply steam pak choi, halved if large, for a couple of minutes, remove to a warm plate and drizzle the hot, vividly green veg with toasted sesame oil and light soy. Please be very delicate with both these, you need just a few drops of each sprinkled over the steaming hot vegetables, as too much overwhelms. But, with the right amount of judicious seasoning, this is a delicacy, and flatters the flavour and texture of this vegetable much better than stir-frying, in my opinion.

Yakisoba [#212]

As an occasional visitor to Wagamama, I thought I knew what Yakisoba was - a big pile of noodles fried with chicken or tofu or prawns with some veg, sesame seeds and quite a bit of oil. A nice dish, but nothing at all like Harumi Kurihara's version, the first from her book for this challenge. Rather, what she does is to fry cooked egg noodles in a flat 'pancake' on both sides in a little oil until crisp. This is then served with a saucy stirfry on the top of pork and pak choi, with mushrooms added in my case. The sauce is made from chicken stock, soy sauce, hoisin or oyster sauce, sesame oil and rice wine, lightly thickened with cornflour. It was unexpected, with really interesting textures and quite delicate flavours. As Harumi is generally hailed as the Japanese 'Delia', I am sure this is more authentic than the Wagamama version!