So while shopping for groceries today, i discovered that 空心菜 is finally back in season!
While cooking it usually has a pretty tedious prep process (remove all the leaves from stems), it can be made into 2 dishes quite easily! You can cook the leaves with diced garlic for the traditional 蒜蓉空心菜 and then dice the stems and add some 豆豉辣椒 for a pretty traditional 湖南豆豉辣椒空心菜根 (creative naming, right?). I think I’ve just found my food for the next couple of lunches at work.
To add on top of that, I just found out that the local Korean market sells eel! Some say that 99 ranch has it too – but I have not yet been able to locate it (or at least in the one that’s close to me). Have been wanting to cook some unagi (and duck – but haven’t found a right time to do so yet). Dinner tonight:
番茄炒蛋 (tomato and eggs)
烤鳗鱼 （unagi)
Pan Seared Opah (don’t know how to translate “pan-seared” in chinese, haha. Opah = 月鱼)
苋菜汤 (Zen Choy soup)
Interesting note: For some reason, the storekeeper at the local Korean grocery market keeps offering me Yakult Yogurt when I’m paying for my stuff. I wonder if she just has an overstock of Yakult Yogurt that she wants me to buy from or if shes just using it as a retention tool. Either way, its working!
