Braised shitake mushrooms with pak choy 香菇菜心

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Shitake Mushrooms, braised in an aromatic liquid and served with some vibrant jade green veg like pak choy makes a very decorative dish and is very delicious. This dish is a very popular home-cooked dish and is often served as part of a Chinese New Year feast. A more luxurious version is usually made with “fatt choy” or a hair like fungus that is very auspicious as the name is an alliteration of “to prosper”. This ingredient is not that easy to find in London Chinatown but if you ask for it at the cashier, they sometimes have some stashed behind the counter. It’s quite pricey.

I don’t know how long this dish has been on Chinese menus but it might be quite a while as I have seen it featured in Chinese costume dramas.

Braised mushrooms with pak choy as seen on Chinese Dramas

This braised mushroom dish can be made vegan or vegetarian if you use the vegetarian oyster sauce instead of the regular oyster sauce. If you can find baby bak choy instead of the regular fat ones from a high street supermarket, they will make the dish look a lot more abundant.

Plan your Chinese New Year Menu

If you want to make this recipe, here are some other dishes you can add to your Chinese New Year menu. Every dish has a special meaning, usually something auspicious.

Braised mushrooms with pak choy : recipe details

This recipe is really easy to make. There aren’t any tricky technical methods needed to make this dish. The recipe is in 2 parts. First, the pak choy followed by braising the mushrooms.

The first step is to reconstitute the dry shitake mushrooms. The dried mushrooms need to be soaked for a while and how long depends on the size and thickness of the mushrooms.

Next, prepare the pak choy by washing them vigorously. I could only the larger ones from my local supermarket and you will often find mud between the leaves. Submerge them in water to remove any dirt and surface level chemicals. You can use the Veg Wash on this too.

Note: you can buy baby pak choy from a Chinese supermarket with a fresh produce section like Loon Fung or See Woo in London Chinatown.

I then slice them into halves or quarters lengthwise as they are too big to eat easily. The veg is then quickly boiled for about 1 min in boiling water. I like to do this in a wok or a large saute pan that is long enough to accommodate the veg.

This is immediately followed by an ice bath to stop the veg from cooking further andto preserve the vibrant green colour. Submerge the veg in the ice batch for about 30 seconds, remove and drain.

To braise the mushrooms, start by sauteing some chopped garlic in hot wok with a neutral oil until fragrant. About 30 seconds. Add the reconstituted shitake mushrooms and stir fry this for about a minute, constantly moving it around the wok.

Then add the braising liquid and aromatics, oyster sauce, dark soy, rice wine, sugar, garlic, ginger, star anise and cinammon stick. Pour the braising liquid over the mushrooms and turn the heat down. Let it simmer for 15 – 20 minutes until the flavour has been fully absorbed by the mushrooms. Adjust seasoning to taste at this point.

Meanwhile, prepare the serving platter. Arrange the pak choy either in a circle if you using a round plate or at one end if you’s using a rectangular plate.

When the mushrooms are ready, carefully arrange the mushrooms in the middle of the plate and spoon over the braising liquid. Serve immediately.