It’s been a while since I’ve posted any original dishes because I’ve been obsessed with making other people’s Chinese home-cooking recipes. I’ve been spending a lot of time sourcing Asian ingredient brands and figuring out the right balance to create Chinese flavor profiles that I find palatable. To kick things off, I’ve focused a lot on vegetarian dishes - I figured if I was going to be trying new things, I should try and keep them affordable so my failures could be less costly. I might try and venture into some traditional Chinese meat preparations sometime soon, but for now, I’m sticking to veg.
The first dish I tried to perfect was this spicy Chinese cauliflower. I’ve preferred Chinese cauliflower over American cauliflower since I first tried it in Taiwan about 7 years ago. It imparts a nuttiness and a superior texture to which American cauliflower just can’t measure up. I must say I’m pleased with the flavor profile. It’s sharp and spicy, you can definitely taste the vinegary notes from the wine, and the nuttiness of the cauliflower shines. The sauce is a bit insipid, and merely soaks into the florets, as opposed to coating the entire cauliflower. I’m thinking of adding a cornstarch slurry during the final stages of the cook next time, and also maybe adding some chopped peanuts and a squirt of lime, but that would make it a completely different dish. For now, I’m happy with this - I find the key is to serve the cauliflower over rice, and spoon some of the sauce over it so it can soak down into the rice. The rice mellows out the sauce, and the sauce spices up the rice. I can’t ask for anything more.
Note that Chinese cauliflower takes longer to cook than American cauliflower, so be sure to pay attention to the cooking times in the recipe.
Butter Count: There’s not much butter to be found in Chinese recipes, but I swear this is good even without butter.
INGREDIENTS:
1 head Chinese cauliflower
1/4 cup vegetable stock
2 Tbsp Shaoxing rice wine
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
2 Tbsp canola oil
1/2 tsp ground Sichuan peppercorn
2 shallots, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp ginger, grated
2 Tbsp sriracha (or any chili garlic sauce)
INSTRUCTIONS:
Cut the cauliflower into florets (I like to keep them as large as possible so that there are fewer stem-only bites)
Combine the vegetable stock, Shaoxing rice wine, soy sauce, and sugar in a small bowl.
Heat the oil over medium-high heat in a large wok until just starting to smoke. Add the Sichuan peppercorn, shallots, garlic, and ginger. Stir until fragrant, and then quickly add the sriracha so that the Sichuan peppercorn does not burn. Stir quickly to evenly coat everything in the sriracha.
Add the cauliflower and stir to coat.
Add the vegetable stock mixture and stir to coat again. Cover the wok and cook 7 minutes minimum. Uncover the wok and continue cooking until the liquid is evaporated to your desired thickness and the cauliflower is fully cooked, adding a splash of vegetable stock here and there if the wok starts getting too dry.
Transfer to a serving plate. Garnish with green onions if desired. Serve over cooked white rice.