“Making sex is like a Chinese dinner – it ain’t over ’til you both get your cookies.” -The incomparable Alec Baldwin as Old Man Dunphy in the Farrelly Brothers‘ 1999 comedy Outside Providence

I’m wary of “cooking wines.”  You should be too.  Why?  Well, if you happen to have a bottle of grocery store cooking wine in your pantry or refrigerator right now, go grab it.  Now, unscrew the cap and smell it.  Sorta like vinegar, right?  Like wine that’s sort of “gone bad.”  Now, put a little drop or two on your fingertip and taste it.  Would you want to drink a glass of that?  Didn’t think so.  Now, imagine cooking with it.  Most methods of cooking that involve the application of heat tend to concentrate or heighten flavors.  So basically, imagine that vinegar-y, un-drinkable grossness amplified.  No thank you!  I will pretty much always write recipes that use wine with a little notation that says to use something you are willing to drink.  Meaning, do yourself a favor and retire that crappy “cooking wine” stuff for good.  When you cook with wine, cook with good wine if you want to make good food.  It’s really that simple.  And remember, also, that we live in a very lucky time where wine is concerned.  Good wine does not equal expensive anymore.

That being said, I take it all back for one kind:  Shaoxing wine.  It is highly recommended by the RadioGastronomy labs.  If you like Asian food as much as I do, you will thank me.  And while you are doing that, I will be thanking Clifford:  good friend/generally awesome, hilarious dude/former culinary school classmate.  Cliff is interested in food in a different way than I am, but it’s a way that really fascinates me and interests me nonetheless.  During his time at French Culinary Institute, he apprenticed with sous vide/culinary tech master/other generally awesome dude Dave Arnold (who, by the way, has an amazing blog about this stuff here, as well as an incredible/fascinating weekly radio show on Heritage Radio Network, geared at the food-obsessed).  Like Dave Arnold, Cliff is into pushing the boundaries of food preparation forward and exploring new techniques, while I, admittedly, am more of a comfort food girl that wants to kick it old school.  I’m not convinced, wholly, that all this “molecular gastronomy” stuff has made food better.  (I don’t think all this “foam” jazz at fancy restaurants is appetizing in the least.  It just looks like spit to me…)  I believe that behind all of this gadgetry and weird science, you better still be a great chef without it.  What this approach to food has done, though, is broaden the spectrum of what it means to “cook.”  It allows chefs to do things with food that have never been done before, and that’s very exciting for me.  And I know for a fact Cliff can hold his own in the kitchen.  Because of that, when he recommends something to me, I listen.

Cliff and I went to Chelsea Market (a magical wonderland of food shopping bliss that feels the same for me as going to Toys R Us when I was 8 – shop after shop full of fun things to play with) a few weeks ago, and I picked up a bottle of Shaoxing when we stopped at Dickson’s Farmstand Meats.  (Still regretting coming home without those marrow bones…..)  ”What do you do with this stuff usually?” I asked him curiously, eyeing the big bottle.  ”It’s great with Asian vegetables.  Totally one of my favorite ingredients lately.”  Sold, noted, and filed.

As luck would have it, I spent that following Saturday morning perusing Fort Greene‘s lovely farmer’s market, and came upon the most wonderful assortment of interesting Asian vegetables:  several kinds of greens, Japanese cucumbers, shiso leaves.  I settled on this “yao choy” stuff because I’d never worked with it before, and truth be told, I’d never even heard of it before, either.  That is, I thought I hadn’t, until I looked it up and realized that it’s actually the edible leaves of the rapeseed plant, which is responsible for, oddly, Canola oil.  (Of course, no one wants to use something called “rapeseed oil,” so it was branded as Canola instead:  ”Can” meaning Canada for where the oil was first developed, and “Ola” meaning oil.)  Yao choy is a slightly bitter, rather hearty green that comparatively sits somewhere between bok choy and kale.  It lends itself wonderfully to a quick braise, which both helps to take the edge off of the bitterness, and also helps to break down the tougher texture of the stems and leaves.  The recipe that follows is easy, quick, healthy, and light.  And Cliff was right.  Shaoxing is great with Asian vegetables.  Pffffttttt, as if I doubted him for one second.

A quick little note:  This same exact recipe would work equally well with bok choy, baby bok choy, or other hearty Asian leafy green.

Ingredients:

Neutrally-flavored oil, such as vegetable or canola

1 good-sized bunch of yao choy, washed and dried well, stem ends trimmed back about 1/2″ just to clean them up a bit

1/4 cup chicken stock (NOTE:  Vegetarians can absolutely substitute vegetable stock here.  Everyone should use homemade stock, if possible.)

1/4 cup Shaoxing wine

3 tbsp. soy sauce

1 large garlic clove, smashed, peeled, and chopped fine

1 thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped fine

Sesame oil, for drizzling

1 tbsp. sesame seeds, toasted over medium-low heat in a dry pan until fragrant and golden brown (NOTE:  Don’t walk away from the stove while doing this.  It happens fast.)

Kosher salt

Instructions:

1.  In a large saute pan that has a tight-fitting lid, heat just enough of the neutral oil to coat the cooking surface.  Flame should be medium-high.  When the oil and pan are nice and hot, drop in the yao choy leaves and cook, turning only once, until they are bright green and lovely, about 1-2 minutes.

2.  Turn heat down to low, and pour in the chicken stock ,Shaoxing wine, and soy sauce.  Cover with the lid, and braise over low heat for about 5 minutes, or until greens are tender but still have some integrity to them.  Remove the greens and cover to keep warm, but keep the braising liquids on the fire, turning the flame up to high now.  Bring to a boil and reduce the liquid down to about 1/3 of what you started with.  Stir in the garlic and ginger.  Season to taste with salt, remembering that soy sauce is very salty already and you may not need much more, if any.

3.  Arrange the greens on a platter.  Pour the reduced liquid mixture over the greens, drizzle with a tiny bit of sesame oil (it has a very strong flavor), sprinkle with the toasted sesame seeds, and serve.

Yield: I’d say this makes about 4 side-dish-sized helpings

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