Bok Choy Stir Fry with Oyster Sauce and Garlic Oil

Walk into any Chinese restaurant in the world and it is almost guaranteed the menu will include a simple vegetables stir fry dish with oyster sauce (and garlic oil).

This iconic dish looks and sounds very simple, and should be very easy to recreate at home, but can be deceptively tricky to replicate. This is the recipe that makes me finally able to reliably recreate this in my own kitchen. ♥

Baby bok choy, and other Chinese greens

Although this particular recipe calls for baby bok choy, you can use other vegetables too. Some of my favorite include yu choi, gai lan, chai sim, napa cabbage, and broccolini.

You can even use vegetables that rarely appear in a Chinese menu, such as broccoli, green beans, iceberg lettuce, asparagus, celery, and even mushrooms.

The trick lies in blanching

As weird as it sounds, the key to this bok choy stir fry dish is not in stir frying, but in blanching. And by blanching, I mean learn how to boil your vegetables properly.

The most straightforward method would be to bring a pot of water to a boil and salt it. Add vegetables and cook until either crisp-tender or tender (your preference, I prefer mine to be crispy still). Drain.

You can do two things after draining. Either just plate them and drizzle with sauce straightaway. Or, you can shock the vegetables by dropping them in ice or cold water, drain again, then drizzle with the sauce.