Shanghai cabbage with mushrooms

The Shanghai cabbage tastes so good when it's in season. And I'm often amazed at how cheap it is. My favorite way of cooking this vegetable is stir-frying with white mushrooms. This stir-fry brings out the sweet and crispy freshness of the green vegetable, while the mushrooms add a touch of smoothness to the texture, and act as a sponge to absorb the flavor of the sauce. I sometimes add a little dried shrimps too, to give a little chewy meaty taste to the bites.

Recipe: Stir-fried Shanghai cabbage with mushrooms and dried shrimps (for 2-3)


Ingredients:
- 1 lb Shanghai cabbage
- 6 white mushrooms, sliced to 1/8" thick
- 2 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 2 teaspoons (tp) ginger, finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon (TB) dried small shrimps (optional)
- 2 tp light soy sauce
- 1 TB hoisin sauce
- 1 tp Sriracha hot chili sauce
- 1-2 TB oil


Procedure:
1. Soak the Shanghai cabbage in water for 20 minutes to loosen any sand. Wash and rinse in water to remove all dirt and sand particles. Separate the green leaves from the stems. Then cut the stems into halves longitudinally, to yield less curvy pieces (in order to give good contact with the pan when frying). 
2. Heat oil in a non-stick frying pan on medium heat. Add chopped garlic, chopped ginger and dried shrimps to oil. When they sizzle, add mushrooms to the pan. Spread the mushrooms uniformly over the pan to enable good heat conduction. When the mushrooms start to soften, add the Shanghai cabbage stems and turn heat up to high or med-high. As the cabbage stems come in touch with the pan, they will give out water and become translucent. At all times, do not allow the pan to dry out or to flood. When there is just a very thin film of liquid between the ingredients and the pan, stir in the soy sauce and mix. Then add the green leaves and stir. When the green leaves gives out its water, add hoisin sauce and chili sauce to mix with the liquid. Once most of the liquid has evaporated, remove all ingredients from pan and serve hot.

Though I consider this recipe to be for 2-3 persons, I can actually finish the whole dish all by myself. My husband often says that if vegetable had any calories, I'd be as big as a horse!