Chinese Vegetarian Recipes

Chinese Cabbage Recipe

From today onward, we will come officially to the Chinese Vegetarian Recipes. We will start with the Chinese Cabbage Recipe. But before we come to that, I will tell you why I love Chinese cabbage so much.

I have a special relationship with Chinese Cabbage. As I recall, Chinese Cabbage, together with potatoes and sweet potatoes, was one of the main vegetables that we eat in my childhood, especially during the winter.

When winter came, we would dig a large hole in the yard and put all of the harvested Chinese cabbages into it, then covered it up with soil and bunches of corn stalks. Everyday my mom would reach into the hole through the gas of the corn stalks and fetch one Chinese cabbage out which would be enough to supply us for one day.

The way my mom cooked the Chinese cabbage is simple. She used animal oil to stir fry it a little bit before pouring water into it and wait until the water with the vegetable was boiling. Then she would add some vermicelli (which should be softened by immersing into hot water or lukewarm water).

This dish was what I love best although we ate it everyday. Although I tried to cook it that way later after I grew up, it could never be so delicious any more. Even my mom cannot come up a Chinese cabbage dish with the same aroma again. I didn’t know why until it reminded me of the following story.

This story was told by my grandmother to me and my older sister.

Long long ago, perhaps during the Qing Dynasty, there was a poor educated student who was on his way to the Capital of China (the current Beijing) for the civil service exam, hoping he could become a politician.

He was too hungry to walk any further (In the old days, the transportation tools that people can rely on are only the two legs). At that moment, a beggar came up with a broken bowel of vegetable leaf soup with a few grains of rice. He thought that was the most delicious meal that he had ever eaten in his life.

After he succeeded in the exam and went home with servants, he dropped at the place the beggar lived. He asked the beggar to cook the same soup for him again. He found that it was so disgusting that he cannot even get close to it.

The circumstances have changed. Your appetite also change along.