Chinese Lettuce Cups (San Choy Bau)

San Choy Bau Recipe

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Recipe Overview

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 10 minutes

Makes: 4-8 large lettuce cups or 8-12 small lettuce cups

Ingredients Needed

Filling

• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1/2 medium onion, diced (around 125g/4ozs)
• 1/2 teaspoon minced ginger
• 1 clove garlic, peeled and diced
• 250g/8.8ozs pork or chicken mince
• 80g/2.8ozs water chestnuts, drained weight, sliced
• 1 medium sized carrot fine dice, 0.5cm/0.2inch
• 40g/1.4ozs celery, fine diced, 0.5cm/0.2inch

Sauce

• 2 tablespoons Hoi Sin sauce
• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
• 2 teaspoons Shaoxing wine
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon white sugar
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil

To Wrap

• 2 stalks of green onions, sliced, soft part only
• 40g/1.4ozs roasted roughly chopped peanuts
• 4-6 leaves large iceberg lettuce or 8-12 small baby cos leaves

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Step-By-Step Instructions

Step 1 - Prep all items by chopping and have them ready and mix up all of the sauce ingredients together in a small bowl ready.

Step 2 - Add the oil to a pan on medium heat. Fry the onion until soft and translucent, then add the ginger and garlic and saute for 30 seconds. Increase heat to high and add the mince and brown breaking it up with a wooden spoon. Then add water chestnuts, carrot and celery.

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Step 3 - Turn the heat back down to medium and add the sauce mixture and cook until the sauce has been absorbed into the mince and there isn't much liquid left. The vegetables should still be crunchy but not raw. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

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Step 4 - Remove the 2-3 floppy outer leaves of the iceberg lettuce. Turn the lettuce upside down. Remove the core with a knife and place the lettuce hole side up in the sink. Using cold water only directed on the lettuce, gently pry apart the leaves. Remove them gently and then trim to a circle using scissors.

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Step 5 - Place the lettuce leaves on a platter or individual plates. Divide the filling among the lettuce cups and sprinkle with peanuts and spring onion. Upgrade this to a more restaurant style san choy bau by deep frying some uncooked vermicelli noodles for 30 seconds or until puffed and crispy and placing on top.

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Upgrade: finish this with some deep fried vermicelli. Just separate out a small section from a small bundle of uncooked vermicelli noodles and fry for 30 seconds in 180C/350F oil. The noodles will puff up and cook in the oil. Remove with a strainer and dry on a paper towel and then use.

Substitution notes and ingredients:

This is worth a little trip to the supermarket to find the sauces. Oyster sauce, soy sauce, Shaoxing wine and hoi sin sauce are basic sauces that you will use if you make Chinese food. If you have extra hoi sin sauce, try my hoi sin glazed salmon!

Water chestnuts are sold in small tins in the Asian aisle of the supermarket.

Other vegetables that you can use are bean sprouts, shiitake mushrooms, zucchini or red capsicum peppers.

I used spicy roasted peanuts from the Asian aisle too. They added a bit of spice and were already crunchy, salted and roasted.

Personal Note

I try and make up recipes according to what I think you'll like but also what is in season. Or sometimes I'll make a recipe based on just what I have in the fridge and this was the case here as Mr NQN bought an iceberg lettuce.

It sat neglected in the crisper for a few days and then I decided that I had to make San Choy Bow with it because I got some recipes from my mother and it is one of the most delicious ways to use lettuce.

I don't know what it is about using everything up but I feel better knowing that nothing goes to waste. So I made up some filling and then took the lettuce out. I goraned. The core of the lettuce was tinged red and the lettuce had definitely seen much better days. It was one of those super tightly packed ice bergs too that was made up of yellow inner leaves and it was also rapidly browning too. It was the worst of all worlds.

So instead of making a recipe around something, Mr NQN had to go out and buy another iceberg lettuce, which sort of deafeated the purpose of making this with the lettuce I had! But the reward was that it was so delicious that he wolfed down two giant lettuce wraps and this was a couple of hours before going out to dinner!

So tell me Dear Reader, do you like to use up as much as possible? Does it pain you to throw food out?