Fresh bamboo shoots for hot weather

Taiwan spent fifty years under Japanese occupa­tion, from 1895 to 1945, and the culinary influence has never left. The fresh seafood available on the island is part of the reason why the Japanese cui­sine there is so wonderful, but I’m also fond of it because it has been inflected with Chinese flavors.

To make this local specialty, fat winter or spring bamboo shoots are cooked until barely tender, chilled, and then drizzled with ribbons of Japanese mayo. Overall, it’s a very simple dish, but make sure you check out the Tips below for help in selecting the main ingredient.

Beaooootiful

This last week I came across a gorgeous pile of black-sheathed bamboo shoots. They are spring rather than winter bamboo shoots because a) it is no longer winter and b) they are long and thin. I lack all self-control when it comes to ingredients like this, so I bought a large bag of them and happily mused over all of the good things that could be created with them.

And then the weather became really hot down here, and so it was a no-brainer: they had to be transformed into something dead simple, a lovely cold dish that I’ve loved for decades. Share the joy.

Cold bamboo shoots with mayonnaise

Liángbàn zhúsŭn 涼拌竹筍

Taiwan

Serves 4 to 6

1 pound | 500 g winter bamboo shoots, fresh or frozen and defrosted (see Tips)

2 teaspoons sea salt

Curly lettuce leaves for garnish, optional

Kewpie brand mayonnaise, as needed

Peel off the sheaths

1. Start this recipe at least 4 hours—and up to 3 days—before serving. If using fresh bamboo shoots, peel them. To do this, first cut off thin slices from the base with a very sharp knife until the meat is a pure ivory color. Then, slit the sheath up from one side, starting at the bottom and exerting more pressure as you reach the tip, which will aim your blade down through the sheath layers and make their removal relatively easy. Trim off any less-than-perfect bits. If you are using winter bamboo, cut the shoots into chunks about 1 inch | 2 cm all around. For spring bamboo, slice the shoots lengthwise into uniform strips, as having them the same size will help them cook evenly.

2. Rinse the shoots and place them in a medium saucepan. Cover with water and add the salt. Bring the water to a full boil over high heat and then reduce the heat to maintain a gentle simmer. Cook the shoots until the thickest piece can be easily pierced with a paring knife, about 15 min­utes for frozen winter shoots and about 30 minutes for fresh; spring bamboo shoots will sometimes take much longer, as the bases are particularly hard. (Remember, bamboo is used for things like furniture and flooring, so you’re sometimes faced with cooking young wood.) Drain, rinse with cool tap water, and drain again in a colander. Allow the shoots to cool to room temperature and then refrigerate for at least a couple of hours to chill them completely.

A split spring bamboo shoot

3. Just before serving, clean and dry the optional lettuce leaves and arrange them on a serving plate. Mound the chilled bamboo shoots on top of the lettuce and drizzle them with your mayonnaise.

Tips

When it comes to bamboo shoots, there are two basic kinds available in the United States at present: chūnsŭn 春筍 (“spring bamboo shoots”) and dōngsŭn 冬筍 (“winter bamboo shoots”). Spring bamboo shoots are long and thin, while winter bamboo shoots are short and chubby. Spring shoots are grassier and more delicate, and so should be cooked gently. Winter shoots are heavier in texture and great for braises.

Select fresh shoots that are firm all over; the sheaths should have no sign of mold or mildew. If the tips are not green, it means that the shoot was harvested while it was still underground and it’s likely that its sugars have not had a chance to turn bitter. Look for shoots that have freshly cut bases; shrinkage around the bases tells you that the shoots are drying out. Store these in the refrigerator in their sheaths and use as quickly as possible. Peel and blanch them if you need to keep them a while longer. Frozen ones keep well, but they should be used before they get freezer burn.

Ready to cook

Spring bamboo shoots will almost always be frozen during their shipment, which of course helps to keep them from rotting on their long ocean voyage, and so they are not really and truly fresh, but this is as close as we can get right now to the genuine article. What this means to you as a shopper is that you should gently (and most likely surreptitiously) squeeze the shoots as you pick them up. Discard any that feel at all mushy.

While you are doing that, inspect the bases and the tips. The tips should still be more or pointed, which means that they weren’t banged around a whole lot during their processing. The bases ought to look and feel hard. You will see a bit of drying out, which is normal, but press on the flat bottoms to see whether they have softened up, as this will indicate a hard freeze that broke down the cells. This generally can be trimmed off, but it is wasteful.

Accept no substitutes

Another way to prepare your bamboo shoots is to cook them in salted, defatted chicken stock. If you like, you can season the stock with rice wine, ginger, and green onions. The bamboo shoots will be much more flavorful this way, and they won’t need any garnish.

Hunt down Japanese Kewpie brand mayonnaise for this and all other Chinese dishes that call for mayo. It has a richer flavor with a tiny piquant edge smoothed with a bit of sugar. It is also packed with things like MSG, but oh well, it tastes really good.

If you would prefer more of a punch in your dish, mix the Kewpie with some Sriracha hot sauce to your favorite degree of hellishness and then toss the bamboo shoots with it. This goes really great with cold beer. Just saying.

Double winter delight

This is a glorious cold-weather vegetable dish that goes by the equally glorious name of “double winter.” And it gets that name courtesy of the fat winter bamboo shoots and winter black mushrooms that shine here in all their, well, glory.

When we lived in Taiwan and happened upon an eatery that seemed like it might be good, but we were not sure what we’d end up with on our table, this was one of our “safety” dishes. 

It was hard for anyone to really mess this up because in Taiwan everyone used the fresh, sweet, succulent bamboo shoots that covered the endless hills, as well as the just-picked, meaty, swooningly aromatic black mushrooms that flooded the markets. This meant that even if the cook was asleep at the wheel, we would have something tasty in front of us no matter what.

The devil is always in the details, though. And when it comes to this particular dish, the difference between what is pretty good and what is intensely delicious is as broad as a highway. It’s sort of like fried chicken. If you have a good quality bird and fresh oil, you know you are going to end up with something scrumptious. But if you marinate that chicken right, give it the perfect coating, supply a bit of steam in addition to the hot oil, and cook it just until done, you will have yourself a plate of died-and-gone-to-heaven.

What I've discovered over the years is that there are a couple secrets to making this sensuous Zhejiang dish especially good.

First, parboil the bamboo shoots to get rid of any bitterness. No matter how hard you try, there often will be lingering tannic flavors that will fight with the silky mellowness of the other ingredients. So, cut up your freshly peeled shoots and boil them in nothing but water for around ten minutes. Take a taste, and if the shoots still are a bit bitter, parboil them again, discarding and rinsing the shoots each time you do this. (Get shoots with yellow rather than green tips, and the bottoms should not show any shriveling or molding; see the photo below.)

Super fresh bamboo shoots

Second, use really, really fragrant mushrooms. Nowadays the fresh black mushrooms in our Chinese markets are almost always flower mushrooms with the split caps, and they have an earthy, sexy perfume that manages to fill up the car on the ride home. So, use your nose and find ‘shrooms that advertise their presence.

Third, use chicken stock instead of water. This is very important because that stock supplies an underlying layer of xianwei, making the dish rich without being greasy, full of depth, and intensely flavored.

Fourth, use a good quality soy sauce and Shaoxing rice wine. You won’t need a lot here, but this dish is so simply seasoned that if either of these is of poor quality, it will show. (FWIW, I almost always use Wan Ja Shan soy sauce and Taiwan’s TTL Shaoxing rice wine.) Do not add too much soy sauce to this dish: that is what almost invariably wrecks it, as the saltiness will take over the sweetness and upset the subtle balances at play here.

And finally, rock sugar is what lends the sheen and subtle sweetness to this dish. It may seem like a whole lot is being thrown in here, but black mushrooms absorb sugar like there is no tomorrow, and instead of turning sweet, the sugar emphasizes their meatiness.

This dish can easily be made ahead of time and then warmed up while the bok choy garnish is being stir-fried. It also tastes great if allowed to sit around a day or two while the seasonings work their way into the very centers of the bamboo shoots and mushrooms.

Red-cooked double winter

Hóngshāo shuāngdōng 紅燒雙冬

Zhejiang

Serves 4

2 fresh, fist-sized, fat (“winter”) bamboo shoots, or about 2 cups defrosted frozen winter bamboo shoots (no canned ones, please)

6 large, fresh, meaty, fragrant black mushrooms, or 6 to 8 large dried and rehydrated black mushrooms

1 cup organic chicken stock, homemade or storebought

1 tablespoon good regular soy sauce

2 tablespoons Shaoxing rice wine

3 tablespoons rock sugar, more or less (can be one large hunk, if you like)

3 green onions

1 tablespoon peeled, thinly-sliced ginger

Filtered water as needed

Garnish:

2 large handfuls bok choy, trimmed and cleaned

2 tablespoons fresh peanut or vegetable oil

1. If using fresh bamboo shoots, trim off the ends, peel off the sheaths, and trim away any tough parts around the bottom. Cut the shoots into pieces about the same size as half a mushroom cap. Place the bamboo shoot pieces in a small to medium saucepan, cover with filtered water, bring the pot to a full boil, and then lower the heat to a simmer. Parboil the shoots by cooking them for only around 10 minutes, and then pour off the water, rinse the shoots, and taste one. If it is still bitter, repeat this step. When done to your liking, drain off all of the water and rinse the shoots in a colander. If using frozen bamboo shoots, defrost, cut into pieces about the same size as half a mushroom cap, and drain, as these were lightly cooked before being frozen.

Peeled & not

2. Clean the mushrooms and tear off the stems; reserve the stems for something else and tear the caps in half. If you are using dried mushrooms, cut the caps in half; you should also use the strained soaking water instead of regular water in the next step.

3. Scatter the mushroom caps and bamboo shoot pieces in a medium saucepan or sandpot. Add the stock, soy sauce, wine, and sugar. Trim off the root ends of the green onions and tie the onions into loose knots before them and the ginger to the pan. Add just enough water to the pan so that you can barely see it around the edge. Cover the pan and bring it to a full boil, and then lower the heat to a bare simmer and cook it covered for an hour or two, until the bamboo shoots are tender and flavorful. Remove the cover and quickly boil down the sauce by raising the heat under the pan to high, but take care not to burn the ingredients. When the sauce is thick, taste and adjust the seasoning. Cool the pan, if you like, and refrigerate overnight, or proceed immediately with the next step.

4. Just before serving, shake the bok choy dry in a colander. Heat a wok over high and then add the oil. Quickly swirl the oil around and then add the boy choy. Flash-fry them over the highest heat you have until they are barely done but still tender. Arrange these in a rimmed dish around the edge to form a nest. Pour the hot bamboo shoots and mushrooms in the center. Serve hot.