Kanako's Kitchen

Here’s another of those nice-food-if-you-can-get-it recipes, the “it” in this case being the tricky to find main ingredient: garlic sprouts.

Though, on second thought, there’s really no good reason these should be so hard to find in the West. They’re just the young green plants you get from a garlic bulb when you plant it in the ground.

Garlic sprouts seem to be a popular ingredient in Chinese cooking, and we also eat them in Japan, usually with beef. The taste is garlicky, but milder than the bulb’s and they have a unique sweetness that’s not weighed down by a strong smell. Their crunchy texture survives a fair amount of cooking.

Here in Montreal you can find Garlic Sprouts at the big Chinese/Vietnamese/Cambodian grocery superstore: Kim Phat.

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Ingredients (for two):

• Beef – 200g (Pork is also ok)
• One bunch of Garlic Sprout
• Optional: Bean sprouts and/or mushrooms
• Soy sauce – One tablespoon
• Potato starch – Two tablespoons
• Oyster sauce – One tablespoon
• Sake or Shaoxing wine- Two tablespoons
• Sugar – One teaspoon
• Oil – One table spoon

Preparation:

• Cut garlic sprouts in 3 cm long segments.
• Slice the beef in stripes and marinade it with soy sauce
• Sprinkle the beef with potato starch
• Mix well with your hands, massaging the seasoning into the meat
• Optional: Trim off the stringy ends of the bean sprouts with your hands. (→See Moyashi itame)
• Mix the sauce: Oyster sauce, Shaoxing wine (or sake) and sugar

Click to enlarge

Cooking:

1. Add cooking oil to a large frying pan and heat over a high flame
2. Add the beef and stir fry until most of the surface of the meat has changed color
3. Add garlic sprout, keep stirring
4. When everything looks properly cooked (about 5 minutes), add mixed oyster sauce to taste
5. Stir fry briefly while liquid evaporates.
6. Serve hot

click to enlarge

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Today we had garlic sprout stir fry with beef, white rice, miso soup and potato salad.

Itadakimasu!