Mum’s Fail-safe Vegetables

My mum has a handful of fail-safe ways to prepare vegetables, and this has to be one of her top recipes. I dare you to find me a vegetable that won’t taste good done this way – fried with copious amounts of crushed garlic and dried shrimps, and in good old healthy lard, of course. This works with leafy greens, more robust vegetables like cabbage, and both summer and winter squashes. I never get sick of eating vegetables cooked this way because the flavour of the dish changes with the type of vegetable used.

Serves 2–4
  1. Soak the dried shrimps in the warm water for 10 minutes, or until soft. Drain, saving the soaking liquid – this forms the stock for later.
  2. Trim the bottoms of the chard stalks, then wash and dry well. I like to separate the thicker stalks and chop them up into smaller pieces so that the chard cooks more evenly later.
  3. Mum pounds the garlic with the dried shrimps and a big pinch of salt in a mortar and pestle. This helps to release their flavour better in a quick stir-fry. You can also just chop finely.
  4. Heat a wok until smoking hot, then add the lard. Once it’s hot, add the garlic-shrimp mixture and stir-fry until fragrant – it will only take a few seconds.
  5. Push the garlic and dried shrimps to the side of the wok, then add the chard and stir-fry on a high heat for a minute, before adding the reserved soaking liquid.* Turn the heat down to medium and continue stir-frying until the chard is just wilted. Plate up and eat straight away, with plain rice.