CoreyKitchen - Choy Keok (chai buey)

Choy Keok, as it's known in cantonese (or Chai Buey in hokkien) literally means the end of a vegetable/dish. This is normally prepared right after a festive occasion when there's lots of leftovers. Be it roast meat of all and any sort, in fact any kind of meat. And as most chinese would celebrate with an abalone dish, leftover abalone (there would NEVER be any leftover abalone in our family!), the addition of this shellfish takes it up a notch or two. Some also throw in mushrooms, another item that's always on the festive menu. Basically, almost anything can be used in this wonderful, mouthwatering dish.

It basically these leftover meat, mustard green (and it has to be mustard green, no other kind of vegetable would be able to produce the distinct aroma or taste that blends so well with all the ingredients in this dish), dried chillies, tamarind skin/tamarind pieces and garlic

Ingredients

There is not really any measurements of how much of each type of ingredient to put in. It all depends on the amount of leftovers, how spicy, or sour do you prefer it to be. This below is just a guideline. It's up to you to tweak the amount needed to suit your palate.

1kg leftover meat, etc
3kg mustard greens
10 pieces dried chillies, stalk removed and soak in hot water for 10 minutes
10 pieces red chillies, stalk removed
8 pieces tamarind skin (can be substituted with tamarind paste)
2 bulbs garlic, removed from the stem
salt to taste
water

Method

in a big stock pot, fill up half the pot and heat up the water

throw in all the leftovers and let boil for 30 minutes

add the dried chillies, chillies, garlic and tamarind skin. let boil for 1 hours to let the flavours emerge

while the soup is boiling, wash and drain the mustard greens, separate the leafy part from the hard stalks. cut the stalks into bite pieces, and cut up the leafy part into shorter pieces

after the 1 hours, add in the hard stalks and let boil for 15 minutes, and then add the leafy parts. boil for another 10 minutes.

dish up and serve hot, goes best with white rice