A dazzle of jade in the wok
IN the pristine prep kitchen above Culver City's Beacon restaurant, amid the bustle of lunch preparations, chef Vicki Fan is surrounded by vegetables. They cover her cutting board and worktable like a deconstructed garden: short mountains of gorgeous ying choy, the Cantonese name for red spinach or amaranth; long, recumbent leaves of gai choy, the distinctive Chinese mustard greens; a thin bouquet of nira, or garlic chives; impeccably julienned piles of wood ear mushrooms and jade green snow peas; and miniature emerald fans of a dozen baby bok choy.
Fan, who is co-chef-owner -- and general manager -- of Beacon with her husband, Kazuto Matsusaka, has assembled this ad hoc vegetable garden to show how easy it is to cook the Chinese leafy greens that she loves.
"I think people are scared of fresh vegetables," says Fan, whose parents came to this country from Shanghai. Increasingly easy to find in California's Asian grocery stores and farmers markets, the greens are fun to cook, delicious to eat and an integral part of Chinese cooking.
It doesn't hurt that the morning's show coincides with her mission to get her husband to eat his vegetables. Although Fan grew up eating plenty of fresh greens, her husband, who grew up in Japan, is a somewhat recent convert. "Pickled vegetables," Fan says dryly, "don't count."
'It's about the ingredients'
FAN, a slender athletic woman with a bob of dark hair and laugh lines around her eyes, moves briskly around the kitchen, grabbing a seasoned one-handled wok, heating a pot of water, bringing small pans of garlic, ginger, salt and pepper to the stove. "Chinese cooking is very simple," she says as she turns up the heat on her wok. "It's about the ingredients and their freshness -- flavor first, aesthetics second."
A quick stir-fry followed by a little steaming under a lid in the same pan is all it takes to bring out the best in Chinese greens, Fan says. You can give less-fragile vegetables a quick blanch first, or steam them a little longer. But keeping it simple and fast ensures that the vegetables don't overcook and lose their freshness, beauty or nutrients.
Fan swirls a little oil around the hot wok, a sudden rinse up a curved black wall. Equal parts minced ginger and garlic go in next. "You stir-fry with garlic and ginger: It counters the hot aspect of the vegetable." Fan isn't talking about temperature but balance, the centuries-old Confucian notion of the yin and yang of cooking, in which certain ingredients' "cool" qualities balance others' "hot" qualities.
