from PM’s CC Vol III. There’s no chicken in this recipe, just “vegetarian chicken”, which is a rolled up sheet of wheat gluten. I used to hate that stuff when I was a kid because it had this strange rubber-like consistency and off-putting blandness. Big surprise, then, when I tried PM’s version for a couple vegetarian friends and it was so tasty I didn’t want to let it out of my reach. The gluten is unrolled and cut into very thin strips, then stir fried into chewy noodles. The bamboo, mushrooms, and peppers give this dish a world of textures: soft mushrooms, crunchy peppers, crispy bamboo. And not at all bland.
炒 chao3 — stir-fry
素雞 su4ji1 — vegetarian chicken, aka wheat gluten stick. There’s also vegetarian duck, which might be different in some way but I sure can’t tell how so. These sticks are often sliced into coins, mingled with soy sauce, sesame oil, etc and eaten as a cold appetizer. Find them in a bucket of water at your Asian grocery, and store them in your fridge in a bowl covered with water.
絲 si1 — thin, shred-like strips. Everything in this recipe is cut into this shape.
The creepy, larval-looking objects in the metal bowl are the wheat gluten sticks. The yellow-brown thing behind the bell peppers is the bamboo shoot. To the left of the chili peppers huddle five dried mushrooms that have yet to be soaked. Sesame oil is not pictured.
The gluten sticks get blanched for a little bit before everything is stir-fried together in one hot mess.
As usual I fiddled with the main ingredients a little…six gluten sticks is really too much to deal with (see next paragraph), and I thought an extra bell pepper would be great. In retrospect, it really tilted the balance a little too far on the pepper side. I’d recommend sticking with two peppers, particularly if you’re also cutting back on the gluten.
In step 1, PM says oh-so-casually to unroll the wheat gluten. This is actually really tough, since the sheets are delicately thin and tear easily. The first time I tried this, I was frustrated like crazy and felt like hunting down PM to give her a piece of my mind. Now that I’ve had a little practice, it’s not so bad…but not so good that I’d unroll more than 3 of these in a day.
My best unrolling attempt. You don't get to see the worst, hah!
As for how thin the shreds should be, I’d recommend an eighth of an inch. This goes for everything else, really, but the mushrooms can be a little thicker.
Dealing with a fresh bamboo shoot can also be a bit of a pain. There’s all that outside crap to cut off
On the right we have a puny naked bamboo heart. On the left we have a mountain of bamboo outerwear, soon to be compost.
and you’re left with a mini-heart to chop up. I read somewhere that you have to boil bamboo for 30 minutes or else it’s poisonous and will kill you. Not sure if this is true or a kitchen myth, but I sure don’t want to die of bamboo poisoning ( I’d prefer ice cream overdose) so I go ahead and do it.
I’m always quite careful to remove all the seeds in the chili peppers since I’m a wuss when it comes to spiciness–the heat in this recipe is just about all I can take! But what with making this and the Chengdu chicken today, and chopping more chilis for a Chinese new year steamed fish yesterday, my fingertips are suffering first-degree burns!
Time spent: 1 hour
Difficulty level: lots and lots of chopping, plus surgeon-level steadiness of hands for unraveling gluten sticks.
Coulda chopped the green peppers a little thinner...but aren't the colors lovely?
Pei Mei a Day 