Wednesday, May 18, 2011

How We Cook Pak Choi

The picture on the left shows broccoli and pak choi that is available through the CSA.  These two vegetables will be part of the membership share this week. We combined the two together to make a stir fried dish that turned out well.  The ingredients needed are:
-1 pak choi head
-1 broccoli head
-1C orange juice
-2T corn starch
-2T soy sauce
We first rinsed the pak choi broccoli thoroughly to remove soil inside the head of each.  The pak choi was then pulled apart into separate smaller heads as can be seen in the picture on the right.

The broccoli was then cut up into small pieces and set aside in a separate bowl.  The small individual heads of pak choi were cut to separate the leafy section from the thicker denser body. The cut up broccoli and thicker pak choi pieces were then stir fried over medium heat.  We used olive oil, but the type of oil should be interchangeable.
The mixture was stir fried over medium heat until the broccoli and pak choi were cooked down considerably.  When the pak choi and broccoli had a soft consistency the leafy pak choi section that was separted earlier was then added to the stir fry.  The leafy portion should cook down rather quickly. 



To season the stir fried pak choi and broccoli we made a sauce from the orange juice, corn starch, and soy sauce.  We added the three together and then stirred the mixture to get it into solution.  It was then added to the stir fried pak choi and broccoli. As the sauce warms up and mixes it should start to thicken.  The picture on the left showed what our finished product looked like.  We served it over white rice and it turned out well.

First Pick Up

Thursday May 19th will be our first official pick up day.  We have emailed all the members to let them know and we are looking forward to everyone coming out.  We will be handing out shares from 3pm to 6pm in the red barn. The shares this week will be light due to weather, but whenever we get plenty of sun and decent temperatures the field will really produce.