Secret Recipe Club: Baby Bok Choy with Shitake Mushrooms

Baby Bok Choy with Shitake Mushrooms

It's that time of the month again: Secret Recipe Club time! I must admit I get a thrill out of getting my blog assignment, pouring through the assigned blog looking at recipes, and then waiting with anticipation to see who picked what recipe from my own blog to make. It's a rush. Are you interested in joining in on the fun? Head on over to The Secret Recipe Club to sign up!

This month I was assigned the blog Jeanette's Healthy Living. Jeanette makes some truly scrumptious-looking food, focusing on anti-cancer fighting ingredients, as well as many gluten free options. In my quest to expand my side dish repertoire, I decided to focus my search on her vegetables section. And boy, did I have a tough choice to make. The Creamy Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes looked inviting, as did the Roasted Broccoli with Cherry Tomatoes, and they are in the same post! And then she had several posts for Brussels sprouts, which I adore. In the end I decided to break out of my normal potato/broccoli/green beans/Brussels sprouts rut and cooked something I've never cooked with before: bok choy! Oh yes, I've eaten it plenty of times in takeout, but I'd never actually thought about cooking it. I opted for Baby Bok Choy with Shitake Mushrooms because a girl can never have too many mushrooms and the ingredient list seemed light enough to showcase the true flavors of bok choy. I was pleased with my decision.

Baby Bok Choy and Shitake Mushrooms

Baby Bok Choy with Shitake Mushrooms

adapted from Jeanette's Healthy Living, serves 2-3 as a side

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon minced or grated ginger
3 cups baby bok choy, ends trimmed, washed and cut into 1" pieces
6 fresh shitake mushrooms, cleaned and sliced into 1/2" pieces
salt to taste
2 tablespoons vegetable stock or water

Directions:

Heat sesame oil on medium heat in a large skillet. Add ginger and stir for about 15 seconds, or until fragrant. Add bok choy and shitake mushrooms. Season to taste with salt. Add vegetable stock or water and cover; cook for 3-4 minutes, until just tender.

Yay! I get to saute in our good skillets now!

THOUGHTS:

I halved the recipe that worked very well. It served me perfectly as a very generous side dish at lunch. I was a bit surprised at how much like other greens (say spinach or turnip) the tops of the bok choy tasted, though that really shouldn't have surprised me. The stalks were quite tender after just a few minutes of cooking and had a mild flavor. I prefer creminis to shitakes, so I would probably swap them out in the future, but overall this dish was quick, flavorful, and easy to make. That's three big wins in my book!

If you read the original recipe, I'm sure you noticed that I left out one of the ingredients: red bell pepper. Yep, my dislike of bell peppers came up again. If you love them, I'm sure they'd be great in this dish, but I didn't miss them one bit!

VERDICT:

Good-solid-side-dish: 1 vote!