Squid and Baby Bok Choy

This brings back memories – the perfect home cooked dish. When I was growing up, my dad worked in a Chinese restaurant as a chef and like most Chinese restaurant workers he worked six days a week. Wednesdays were his usual days off, and because my mother wasn’t really the best of cooks – my dad would still cook us dinner on his day off. He’d dish up steamed fish, blanched veggies – and then an extra something, sometimes barbecue pork, sometimes a stir fry – whatever it was, it was always delicious.

This was a classic Dad dish. He’d do this really cool thing and gently slice a cross hatch pattern into the larger squid pieces. This helped them cook and let them naturally curl into themselves, plus they looked really cool.

Ingredients:

1 large squid – in Australia, squids seem to be extra large, while in the states I only saw small ones. Either ways you want about 400 grams

3 small baby bok choy – cleaned and roughly chopped

Oyster sauce to taste

1 tbs sugar

Salt to taste

3 cloves of garlic – finely minced

Oil to stir fry

4 small slices of ginger

Method:

Clean the squide. You’ll want to remove head with the tentacles attached, but while you’ll want to cut off the tentacles and cook those as well. (Be sure you remove the hard mouth!) Empty and clean the insides, being sure to remove the cartilage that acts as the spine of the animal. Peel back the purplish skin so you’re left with the white meat.

Cut into chunks and sizable slices. Cross hatch each slice but cutting first across and then up and down, but don’t slice all the way through.

Heat about 2 tbs of oil in a wok. Add the garlic and fry in the oil for about a minute to release the flavours. Add squid pieces and ginger and fry for about 2 minutes. Cover and let cook for about 5 minutes.

Add the baby bok choy and stir through. Add about 3 tbs of oyster sauce (depending on taste) and sugar and salt. Mix thoroughly, cover and cook for an addition 2 minutes.