Chayote With Vermicelli
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My family loves chayote. We love how it stays crunchy after stir-frying so we like to call it crunchy cucumber. Besides stir-frying with pork, this is another new family favourite recipe added to the family dinner menu. Black fungus and carrots are added for both colour and nutrition, while my favourite vermicelli – the mung bean noodles (tang hoon) are added to soak up the sweet chicken and dried shrimps stock used to simmer the dish.
See Also:
If you like some meat, you can also add marinated pork or leftover roast pork for a complete meal. I like the fact that both chayote and carrots keep extremely well in the fridge, while the rest of the ingredients are dried (dried shrimps, black fungus and tang hoon), so I can cook this anytime my kitchen fresh food stock is getting low. That’s the reason why I always sneak in a chayote in my grocery shopping nowadays.
All the ingredients volume up and like chap chye, the two of us will end up with a generous bowl with leftovers. I usually reheat the next day with a bit of added chicken stock, it still taste good the next day.
Chayote is also called Buddha palm or closed palm melon in Chinese due to the fact that the side view (shown above) resembles a closed (clenched) palm. You should have seen it around the supermarkets even if you are not familiar with it. The taste is light, refreshing and sweet, so it made me feel healthy eating it. My mum said they are good for Chinese soups too.
Chayote With Vermicelli Recipe
For a vegetarian version, omit the dried shrimps and use vegetable stock.
Ingredients:
- 1 whole chayote (佛手瓜/合掌瓜) peeled and sliced to thin strips
- 1 tbsp dried shrimps (aka Hay Bee, heibi, Xiami, 虾米)
- 1 tbsp cooking oil
- 4 cloves garlic finely chopped
- 3 slices ginger sliced thinly
- 30g vermicelli (tang hoon/mung bean noodles) soaked to soften and drained
- a small handful of dried black fungus soaked to soften and cut to strips
- 1 carrot peeled and finely shredded
(A) Sauce
- 1/2 cup chicken stock (if you are cooking clear Chinese soup, you can use that too)
- 1/2 tsp light soy sauce
- 1/2 tsp sesame oil
- 1 tsp Shaoxing wine
- water from soaking the dried shrimps
Directions:
- Rinse dried shrimps and soak them with hot water (just enough to cover the shrimps) in a small bowl. Drain the dried shrimps, setting aside the soaking water. Pat dry the shrimps with kitchen towel.
- Heat oil in wok and saute the ginger and dried shrimps until fragrant. Add garlic and stir fry for about 30 seconds.
- Add chayote and black fungus strips. Stir fry for about 3 minutes.
- Add carrot and sauce (A). Let the contents simmer for 1-2 minutes.
- Add vermicelli and allow the noodles to soak up the sauce.
Noob Cook Tips
- The chayote is slightly slippery during peeling and slicing so do be careful.
- The carrots are finely shredded using a special vegetable peeler. If you are cutting them by hand like in the case for the chayote, add the carrots in step 3 instead of 4.
- If you like to add meat, check out chayote with pork recipe. You can also use leftover roast meat.