Quick hit: Sesame-Soy-Glazed Baby Bok Choy

Here's a superfast side dish that is tasty and infinitely more interesting than the usual cluster fuck of boring vegetable sides like asparagus, green beans, broccoli, carrots...Zzzzzzzzzzzzz...

You can serve this with fish, chicken, steak, it all works. Next time you're in the supermarket buy yourself 2 or 3 Baby Bok Choys (BBC). They are sliced in half during cooking so three is more than enough for two folks especially if, like me, you forswear the starchy sides.

For a company of four, buy 4 BBCs which will be plenty; two halves on each plate will look very elegant.

Time to take the diamond rings off, tie back your hair, and let's go, Divas.


Ingredients:

Serves 4 as a side dish

2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp chicken stock (or canned low-sodium chicken broth)
1 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tsp toasted sesame oil
1 tsp granulated sugar
3 tbsp peanut oil
4 baby bok choy (about 4 oz each, rinsed, halved lengthwise)
3 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through garlic press (about 1 tbsp)
1 inch piece fresh ginger, minced (about 1 tbsp)
2 medium scallions, sliced thin
1 tbsp sesame seeds (toasted in a small dry skillet over medium heat until lightly browned and fragrant, about 4 minutes)

All together now..."First gather your mise-en-place!"

Next, toast the sesame seeds. I like the look and flavor of black India sesame seeds so I use a mix of both white and black.

Rinse your BBC because it usually has dirt accumulated in the bulb. Slice lengthwise and remove the first outer leaves if they are tough, torn, discolored, HUGE, etc.

Prepare the rest of the ingredients. In small bowl or 1-cup measure, combine soy sauce, stock, vinegar, sesame oil, and sugar.

Mince ginger, garlic, and scallions and place in a small bowl until ready to use. Let me just digress for a second. Inspired by my new Rolls Royce of a garlic press, I decide to test its mettle against unpeeled garlic. Holy CRAP, this thing was worth every penny. Observe: here are the garlic cloves, unpeeled:

Look what comes out the other end...Gorgeous, eh?

But check this out:

I wish you could see how PAPER-THIN the remnants of the two garlic cloves are. I will never again peel garlic, YAY for me! And thank you, Kuhn Rikon! Anyway, enough of the detour...where were we? Oh yeah, now mince the ginger. I always use my Mircoplane. Anything else is just a waste of time. Sometimes when I'm in a HUGE rush I even Microplane my garlic.

Thinly slice the scallions. Place all three in a little prep bowl and set aside.

Heat a large nonstick skillet over high heat until hot, about 2 minutes. Add 2 tbsp. of the peanut oil and swirl to coat the pan bottom. Place BBC in skillet, cut-side down, in a single layer. Don't worry if they're a bit crowded, they will shrink.

After about 2 minutes on high heat, flip. They should be wilting, browned and look like this:

Cook for about 1 minute longer and transfer to a large, warm platter. Add the scallion/ginger/garlic mixture to the pan and drizzle with the remaining tablespoon of peanut oil. Cook for about 20 seconds until fragrant.

Add the soy sauce mixture.

Simmer until reduced and thickened about 20 seconds. Seriously, only 20 seconds. This dish comes together very quickly!

Return BBC to pan and warm, turning once, until glazed with sauce, about 1 minute total. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve alongside other main dish and sides.

Note: As you can see I served this with garlic marinated chicken. I had two huge breasts (now, now...) as you can see below. Granted, I'm not a huge fan of chicken (weird, I know) but even if I were, I would r-e-f-u-s-e to eat a piece this odiously thick.

You can easily butterfly by slicing through the thickest, roundest side of the breast with a VERY sharp boning (hey, hey...) knife. Here's a shot:

If you do a good job, it will look like this. Don't worry it takes practice and ...what's that again? A VERY SHARP KNIFE. Thank you. (Wow this looks a bit like someone's derriere...Crikey.)

Presto! Four pieces of chicken out of two large breasts. This was enough for me, The Dude, Cupcake and Beefcake.

Place on a super hot grill, and do NOT flip, for about 4 minutes.

Flip and cook for 3 minutes longer. Do not overcook; remember these are now chicken cutlets and will cook much more quickly than the 2 formerly whole breasts would have.