Recipes for a family covered over in bok choy.

June 23, 2008 3:50 PM

We got a huge load of bok choy in our CSA last week, and I'm at a loss as to what to do with it outside of stir-fry. Please, no more stir-fry! Bonus points for dishes that could be frozen.
posted by Mimzy to food & drink (29 comments total)

Kimchi?
posted by arcticwoman at 3:56 PM on June 23, 2008

I always liked steaming bok choy. Good with just a little salt, or some soy, or oyster sauce.
posted by sycophant at 4:07 PM on June 23, 2008

I had a really amazing baby bok choy salad once, I don't have the recipe but allrecipes seems to have a decent one.
posted by hooray at 4:15 PM on June 23, 2008

What about substituting it for cabbage in some Hluski?
posted by stubby phillips at 4:17 PM on June 23, 2008

Cut them in half, brush with sesame oil, throw them on the grill for a few minutes.
posted by mudpuppie at 4:17 PM on June 23, 2008

Pickle/kimchi
Shred it and use it to stuff buns/dumplings
Wrap it around any dumpling filling you like and steam
Juice it
Make it into light, clear vegetable broth, serve as is or use as stock
posted by RogerB at 4:18 PM on June 23, 2008

Cut them in half, brush with sesame oil, throw them on the grill for a few minutes.

This is great. If you don't have a grill , you can do it either on the stovetop in a preheated skillet or (cut side up) under the broiler.
posted by dersins at 4:20 PM on June 23, 2008

Puree the hell out of it in a blender, and it would be great as a thickener/base for some summer gazpacho or any kind of soup.
posted by allterrainbrain at 4:27 PM on June 23, 2008

Usually the default answer for anything weird in the CSA box is 'roast or grill with olive oil and garlic'. Has worked thus far for kolrabi, radishes, beets, some odd looking Japanese eggplant, and green garlic. They turn out delicious, and earned me the reputation of 'foodie' in our local CSA.
posted by msamye at 4:31 PM on June 23, 2008

I find that almost anything tastes better when surrounded by egg and cheese, so I add almost any green to quiche. (This also has the effect of making quiche much healthier.)

Cut into smallish pieces. Saute in olive oil with onions for around 20 minutes, until soft and tasty. Then use it as a layer in a quiche - pretty much any quiche recipe will do. I particularly like it with Emmenthaler cheese.

I also freeze the copious greens from my CSA. Wash well, cut into pieces, dry well. Spread the pieces out on a cookie sheet and freeze for about an hour, until they're crispy. Then put them in a ziploc bag and back in the freezer. No need to thaw - just saute.

Freezing (and the quiche) work well for bok choy, swiss chard, etc.
posted by Capri at 4:44 PM on June 23, 2008

You can also braise it in a pan with chicken stock and butter.

Use about a cup of chicken and 2 tbs of butter. Bring to boil and set the bok choy in the pan. Cover and cook for about 5 minutes until tender.

You can also add some garlic if you choose.
posted by mcroft at 4:57 PM on June 23, 2008

For something without an Asian flavor profile, try something like this. The recipe calls for endive, but I bet it could be adapted without much fuss for bok choy and the cream/chicken stock/prosciutto combo with the soft, sweet braised cabbages sounds yummy.
posted by mostlymartha at 5:02 PM on June 23, 2008

If you make kimchi, it will keep for quite awhile, and even has its uses once it's gone sour. You can not only eat it as a side dish, but you can also use it in main dishes like kimchi fried rice (perfect for sour kimchi), kimchi soup, and kimchi kongnamul dol sot bi bim bop (that means rice with kimchi, bean sprouts, and a sauce heated up in a clay pot of sorts).

Your question is making me very hungry.
posted by brina at 5:02 PM on June 23, 2008

Funny I am doing literally the exact same thing. Cooking a head of Bok Choy in advance of tomorrow's CSA pickup.

I settled on cooking it in some liquid from poaching chicken, and serving it along with that + boiled leeks.
posted by JPD at 5:18 PM on June 23, 2008

My fall-back for any bunch of greens is this Indian-inspired recipe:

- lots of butter or ghee
- equal parts cumin seed, turmeric, and black mustard seed
- finely grated coconut
- maybe some salt
- maybe some sugar, if the greens are really bitter

Melt butter. Fry spices until mustard seeds start to pop. Add chopped greens and coconut and cook until the greens are soft. Freezes fine and tastes great.

I also use bok choy in any soup recipe that calls for greens.

I blanch and freeze large amounts of greens if I'm not ready to use them (blanch = add to boiling water then remove about 30 seconds later when they're bright green). I just did a huge pile of CSA greens. The frozen greens work great in curries, soups, and other cooked dishes.
posted by PatoPata at 5:19 PM on June 23, 2008

You can also braise it in a pan with chicken stock and butter.

Seconded. I don't even use butter. Just chopped up, and cooked in chicken stock. Mmm.
posted by poppo at 5:22 PM on June 23, 2008

Thank you, dear MeFites -- I, too, have been struggling with excessive CSA greenery...
posted by bitter-girl.com at 6:06 PM on June 23, 2008

My iguana freaking loves bok choi. Perhaps a friend or local could use help feeding theirs.
posted by baphomet at 6:17 PM on June 23, 2008

Bok choy would make a good filling for raviolis if you can find something to complement its slightly salty/bitter taste...perhaps pine nuts.

Or maybe mix with spinach in an omelet?
posted by Elminster24 at 6:32 PM on June 23, 2008

Soups: either hearty with green/brown lentils, or clear and spicy with thin noodles. Nigel Slater's Appetite has a load of bok choy recipes: one involves steaming the bok choy over a pan of gently bubbling stock, then boiling up noodles and seasoning everything with whatever you like -- dark soy, chili sauce, nam pla, lemon, etc.
posted by holgate at 7:21 PM on June 23, 2008

I like chopped cabbage cooked with kielbasa and onions...brown everything in a bit of butter, then cover and simmer until the cabbage is soft. I wonder if you could sub the bok choy in that?
posted by cabingirl at 7:43 PM on June 23, 2008

Sorry to derail a bit, but what is CSA?
posted by arcticwoman at 7:49 PM on June 23, 2008

Sorry to derail a bit, but what is CSA?

Community supported agriculture.
posted by peeedro at 7:58 PM on June 23, 2008

Bok choy/berry smoothie. I bought a big head of bok choy last week, plus some apple juice and frozen blueberries and strawberries, for exactly that purpose. Also, bok choy and its cousin, Napa cabbage, work really well in salads, as their flavor is so mild. Yay for lightly flavored cruciferous vegetables!
posted by limeonaire at 9:17 PM on June 23, 2008

Like cabingirl I'm on the cabbage wavelength, so you might want to try making cabbage rolls with them. They'll probably turn out great.
posted by furtive at 9:22 PM on June 23, 2008

Vegetables are nature's potato chips. Next time you settle in for some reading or TV watching, nestle down with a nice large bowl of any vegetable (bok choy does nicely), perhaps sprinkled with just a tiny bit of salt and pepper
posted by Deathalicious at 10:57 PM on June 23, 2008

I pretty much substitute it into any recipe that calls for kale or chard: vegetable soups, potato and kale soup, corn soup, beef and kale stew, kale and sausage stew, squash mushroom potato kale hash
posted by junesix at 10:57 PM on June 23, 2008

Oh my gosh! How could I forget!?!

This is really delicious:

Take a ground meat of choice (tofu also works) and add finely chopped bok choy. Season with your favorite spices; I like 5 Spice for this recipe. You can then either make burgers, patties, meatballs, etc. or stuff them into wonton wrappers and steam them.
The greens mixed in keep the meat very, very moist.
posted by Deathalicious at 11:01 PM on June 23, 2008

If you make kimchi, it will keep for quite awhile, and even has its uses once it's gone sour.

Kimchi does not go sour. My personal favorite kimchi is 3 or 4 years old, and highly fermented. And the traditional way of aging it, burying it in a pot rather than keeping it in a refrigerator, really does seem to add something.

If you're not fond of spiciness and fermentation, try mul kimchi (literally, water kimchi), which is splendid, and one of my other favorites.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:04 PM on June 24, 2008