Market vegetables, cooked in a clay pot

By: Luke Nguyen
From: The Food of Vietnam
Serves: 4-6
Photographer: Alan Benson

This dish is a vegetarian’s dream — full of unusual, interesting vegetables, and so tasty! Called ‘su hao’ in Vietnamese, kohlrabi is a strange-looking vegetable. Kohlrabi is actually a German word, ‘kohl’ meaning cabbage and ‘rabi’ meaning turnip. It is crunchy, succulent and dense, and tastes a bit like a water chestnut and cabbage combined. Before using your clay pot, remember to submerge it in cold water overnight. This will ensure that it doesn’t crack over high heat.

Ingredients

Quantity	Ingredient
100g	green beans
100g	straw mushrooms
1	bitter melon
1	kohlrabi
1	carrot
1 tablespoon	vegetable oil
2 teaspoons	garlic, finely diced
4 tablespoons	light soy sauce
2 tablespoons	sugar
2 teaspoons	freshly ground black pepper
100g	fried tofu puffs, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon	sesame oil
	coriander sprigs, to garnish

Method

Trim the beans and cut into 5 cm lengths. Slice the mushrooms in half. Slice the bitter melon in half lengthways, remove the seeds, then cut into 2 cm x 3 cm chunks. Peel the kohlrabi and carrot, then cut into the same size as the bitter melon.
Bring a medium-sized saucepan of water to the boil. Blanch the vegetables separately for 2 minutes each batch. Immediately transfer each batch to an ice bath to stop the cooking process and to keep the vegetables crisp.
Place a clay pot over high heat. Add the vegetable oil and fry the garlic for 10 seconds, or until fragrant.
Now add the soy sauce, sugar, pepper and 250 ml water. Bring to the boil, then add the blanched vegetables and the tofu. Stir well and allow to simmer for 5 minutes. Stir in the sesame oil.
Garnish with coriander and serve with steamed jasmine rice.