I usually don’t like to stir fry cabbage because it gets watery and soggy – I dislike soggy vegetables. This Miso & Bonito Flavoured Stir Fry Cabbage looked very promising, so I decided to give it a try.
The recipe time state is 10 minutes. I took 5 minutes to prepare all the ingredients. The frying part took longer again. So I definitely did not finish the whole dish in 10 minutes.
The thing is, I was trying to achieve what the recipe book said about having the cabbage slightly burnt. Unfortunately, like always, the cabbage just became awfully watery. Perhaps I did not drain the cabbage well. Perhaps it has got to do with the kind of cabbage I used – I used China cabbage, but not Wong Bak. So I stir fry for quite a while before all the water was evaporated and I could smell a slight tinge of the burnt smell.
Then I added the seasoning. Usually, once the seasoning is in, the cabbage will give out its fluid and the dish will become watery. So I was rather wary. Fortunately, I think all that stir frying before that probably had evaporated most of the fluid so although a bit more water came out (including the fluid from the seasoning), the dish did not end up as soggy as I expected.
With all that stir frying, the cabbage became more cooked than I like. I like my cabbage slightly crispy. All in all, it was an ok dish. I also learned something : perhaps next time I fry cabbage, I should really drain the cabbage well, and use a higher heat to “dry off” the cabbage before I season. I really hate watery soggy cabbages, which is why I do not eat Sayur Lodeh.
The bonito gives the dish a fishy flavour which I personally do not like. I do eat bonito, e.g. in cold tofu. But in this dish, it just makes it too fishy for me. I will omit it the next time I make this dish.