Cured sausage and snow peas are a Cantonese pair that shows up from September onwards, when the peas are sweet and the sausage from last winter is nearly finished. The peas are blanched and shocked first, which sets the colour and lets the whole thing come together in four minutes of hard heat.
Cantonese · Side
Snow Peas With Cured Sausage: A Ten-Minute Stir-Fry
Blanching the peas for thirty seconds and then shocking them is the whole trick; after that the stir-fry takes four minutes and cannot go wrong.
- Prep10 min
- Cook6 min
- Serves2
- LevelEasy
Ingredients
| 150 g | snow peas |
| 1 | Cantonese cured sausage |
| 4 cloves | garlic , sliced |
| 1 tbsp | light soy sauce |
| salt | to taste |
| 1 tbsp | olive oil |
Method
- Trim the ends off the snow peas and pull the string down each side.
- Bring a pan of water to a boil with a pinch of salt and a few drops of oil, blanch the peas for 30 seconds, then move them straight into cold water. Drain well.
- Slice the sausage thinly on the diagonal, so the fat and lean stay together.
- Heat the oil in a wok over medium-low heat, add the garlic and sausage, and fry until the white fat turns translucent.
- Turn the heat to high, add the peas, soy and a pinch of salt, and toss for 2 minutes.
- Serve immediately, while the peas still squeak between the teeth.
Notes
- Cold water after blanching is what holds the green. Peas left in the hot pan carry on cooking and go olive by the time they reach the table.
- The sausage wants medium-low heat. Started hot, the casing splits and the fat burns before the middle is warm.
- No water goes into this wok. Any liquid turns the dish into a stew and the peas lose their snap.
Ratios and technique checked against 66•食屿 on Douguo (强烈推荐｜荷兰豆这样炒，清甜脆爽超入味，上桌就光盘！). The method here is written by Stellaok and the illustration is ours; no text or photograph from the source is reproduced.