morning glory with shrimp paste 虾酱通菜

I recently came across this interesting purpose made simple tool while grocery shopping in one of my regular Asian store. Intrigued by it's function I asked the shop lady and she just reply dryly it is for slicing a vegetable. She adds that I wouldn't know. She must had a bad morning that day.

Seeing it is from Thailand I immediately knew it is for slicing the hollow stems of a Asian leaf vegetable often called morning glory here. It is 通菜 in Chinese which translates as hollow vegetable because of it's hollow stems. It is very seasonal and does not keep well even in the fridge. Nearly all Asian cultures eat it and there are many ways of preparing it. A common favorite is to stir fry it with shrimp paste 虾酱 or fish sauce or with both. One also add lots of chopped garlic. Thai like some hot pepper for heat.

The tool comes in a quaint package so quintessential of many classic Thai kitchenware. The tool is inside a plastic storage housing. All for a mere $1.99.

While travel to Hong Kong and Macau last year I experienced one memorable version while dinning at a farm kitchen restaurant where the customers are local regulars. All the dishes are great but the one that stands out is the simplest. It is this vegetable cooked in a clay pot with fermented shrimp paste. The shrimp paste was from Lantau Island in Hong Kong, which is known for it's superior shrimp paste.

They use a clay pot that looks to be too large for the finished dish.

The clay pot is heated under high heat. It is then removed from the flame and oil, chopped garlic, and shrimp paste is added to the pot immediately followed by the chopped morning glory. A few stirs with the chop sticks and the lid is placed on the pot. The entire content is cooked by the heat stored in the clay while the waiter serves it to the table. The pungent fragrance of the shrimp paste and garlic infuse the night air and you know you are in the Asia. Everyone immediately consume the piping hot vegetable before it wilt too much.

When I return home I immediately recreated this dish and it could not be simpler and the result is as spectacular. I initially was concern the access to good shrimp paste. It turns out good shrimp paste from Vietnam or Thailand are quite easy to find in most US cities.

The preferred morning glory is one that often is referred to as water spinach.  I believe it grows in very wet field and hence it's name 水通菜; meaning water hollow vegetable. Here is the wiki page for it.

This bring me to this $1.99 tool. Once you have cook with the morning glory you will notice that the leaves wilt very easily while the stems stand up to cooking. This give the uneven degree of done-ness so to speak. Also the stems tends to not soak up the tasty juice as the leaves.

Inside the plastic cylinder of the tool there are 10 stainless blades arranged like a jet turbine.

By forcing the hollow stem through the cylinder one quickly julienne the stem and create 10 thin threads. The thinly julienned stems now cook more evenly as the leaves and the increased surface area soaks up the tasty juice. There lies the ingenuity of the Thai who invented the tool.

Here is the finished dish. I ate two plates in one meal last night.