#ewew cooks Chukadon (Chinese-Style Rice Bowl)

I've always known this dish simply as chow chap choy (Chinese stir-fry mixed vegetables) until I chanced upon a recipe by Just One Cookbook (JOC) who referred to it as Chukadon.  The name is so Japanese, so much fancier than chap choy...so Chukadon it is...with a slight Japanese twist, of course! ;)

I think every Chinese family would have cooked stir-fry mixed vegetables at some point for their home meals as it's super convenient and a complete one-dish meal that you can put just about everything in it.....meat, seafood and vegetables.

Ingredients:

15 (medium-sized) prawns

15 slices of lean pork

1/2 a small carrot, cut into thin slices

2 - 3 bunches of siew pak choy (or bok choy)

4 - 5 leaves of cabbage

3 - 4 mook yee (or wood ear fungus)

3 - 4 shiitake mushrooms, stems removed & sliced

2 cloves garlic, chopped

Marinade for the prawns & pork:

1/2 tbsp cornflour

1 tbsp mirin

1 tsp light soy

Seasoning for the sauce:

1 tbsp mirin

1/2 tbsp oyster sauce

1/2 tsp chicken stock granules

Cornflour slurry

Preparation:

I got these lovely frozen medium-sized sea prawns (size 41/50 for RM38) from my regular seafood supplier, Vfresh, again.  I initially thought there were only two layers of prawns but was delighted to find there were actually three layers when I defrosted them (for a total of 33 prawns).

Prep the prawns...de-shell, devein and slit at the back.  Rub the prawns and pork with the marinade.  I substituted sake with mirin (my Japanese twist) since I didn't have any sake.  Mirin is similar to sake but only sweeter with a lower alcohol content.  You can substitute with Shaoxing wine too if you like.  Leave to stand while you prep the rest of your ingredients.

Cut vegetables into bite-sized pieces (I wanted to include bamboo shoots but couldn't find any).  Though this dish is usually done with napa (or Chinese) cabbage, I prefer regular cabbage (better still, Beijing cabbage). Pre-soak wood ear mushrooms till soften, remove stems and cut into smaller pieces.  Do the same with the shiitake mushrooms (but no need to pre-soak as these are not the dried kind).  Make a cornflour slurry (with 1/2 tbsp cornflour + 1 tbsp water) for thickening the sauce.

Method:

Heat some oil (about 2 tbsp) in a wok (or non-stick pan) and fry the prawns and pork first.  If you want them to sear well, do not move them around with your spatula.  Give it time before you turn them over and the soy (in the marinade) helps give the meat/prawns that light charring.  When almost done (it's ok if the prawns and pork aren't cooked all the way through yet as they'll be cooked again with the vegetables), dish them up onto a plate.  This is so that they don't get overcooked when you stir-fry them again with vegetables.

Add more oil (another 2 tbsp) and saute some chopped garlic (sorry, I can't not put this must-have ingredient in a Chinese stir-fry even though this is more a Japanese take on the dish).  Put in the hardest vegetables to cook first (the carrots) followed by the cabbage and stems of the bok choy.

When the harder vegetables start to soften, add in the rest of the ingredients...the wood ear fungus, shiitake mushrooms and leaves of the bok choy.  For the wood ear fungus, I'd choose the thinner type (as opposed to the thicker ones we usually use for Hakka Char Yoke) as it goes better with stir-fry vegetables (this was suggested by my dry goods seller...and I have to say I agree it was a good recommendation).  Add a little water (about 2 tbsp) to start the sauce going and to help soften the vegetables and mushrooms (the vegetables will release some water too).

Return the cooked pork and shrimps and pour in the seasoning (together with another 2 tbsp water) to make the sauce.  I decided to use less oyster sauce and light soy (and substituted with chicken stock granules) for seasoning as I wanted the dish to stay light coloured.  Drizzle over some cornflour slurry to thicken the sauce.  Keep stirring and it'll 'tell' you how much you need (if it's too thick, add more water).

Serve it over a bowl of steaming hot rice and you have yourself a comforting bowl of Chukadon, an all-in-one rice bowl that has meat, seafood and vegetables for a completely balanced meal.

I was inspired by JOC to cook this dish but was a bit confused to see the recipe calling for the use of one and a half cups of stock (or water) which I thought was way too much for a stir-fry.  That's almost like braising and I wonder how all that liquid got reduced in the recipe (and if it did, the vegetables would have been too soft and mushy by then).  I ended up using no more than a quarter cup (about 4 tbsp)...and I still had a sauce.  Not only that but I felt the seasoning was also excessive and I needed (and used) less even when my quantity of ingredients was more (and the dish turned out savoury enough).  So, it isn't advisable to follow a recipe blindly but be ready to chop and change...and use your instincts during the cooking process to tweak it to what works best for you.

After all is said and done, I did love the dish (with some minor adjustments, of course)! ^o^  The Japanese twist to this dish was the use of mirin and, believe you me, the taste of the mirin in the stir-fried vegetables was quite evident.  It certainly perked up the dish with some fragrance and sweetness that's different from a quintessential Chinese stir-fry.

You can even eat this as one of the dishes with rice in a typical Chinese meal at home.  This reminds me of a popular dish we can get at a siew chow stall outside where the sauce is thickened with egg (much like kong fu chow or Cantonese stir-fry noodles).  It's what we call mun fan when served with rice (or simply stewed vegetables with rice).  You could do that too and stir in an egg into the vegetables which will give you plenty of sauce.

What's not to like in a dish like this...when the prawns are fresh and firm, the lean pork absolutely tender (due to the cornflour mix), vegetables with a crunch, soft mushrooms and a delicious sauce that binds everything together.

The ingredients for this stir-fry are easily inter-changeable with what vegetables you have in the fridge.  You can swap regular cabbage with napa cabbage (or pak choy), fresh shiitake mushrooms with dried ones or bok choy with sugar snap peas.  You could also add things like bamboo shoots (I would have loved to include this but it's not an easy ingredient to find), fried tofu, cauliflower, broccoli, capsicum or even squid.  Just bear in mind the colours of the ingredients so that you end up with a colourful stir-fry that's aesthetically pleasing to the eye and yet tasty.

It's such a healthy dish that we should all aspire to cook....and eat more often.  It keeps well and it's great as food prep too (just undercook the vegetables a little as it'll become softer when you reheat the dish later). And I was kindly reminded by a blogger friend that this is also an ideal dish for slimming.  Well, it certainly can be if you choose to eat it on its own (without rice).

I've made this a totally Chinese-style dish also by omitting the mirin and using Shaoxing wine instead.  I would stir-fry the vegetables with some slices of ginger (and garlic too, maybe even a dash of sesame oil) to give it that distinctive Chinese stir-fry taste.  Whether Japanese-inspired or Chinese-style, it works just as well and taste just as good both ways.  Try it.....both styles! ^_~

Serves 2 - 3 (as a donburi or one-dish meal) or 4 - 5 (as one of the dishes in a Chinese meal with rice)