You could briefly blanch or steam the broccoli before stir frying it to make it more tender and make it easier to cook.

Or, you could put it in sooner in the recipe than I tell you to put in the gai lan.

Rose–you are SO lucky! What a good uncle!

The marinade that stuck to the beef in your mother’s recipe, I am sure is the basis of the sauce. In my experience, that makes a tastier sauce, anyway….

I’m really not sure about what vegetables she used. It may have been the ones my uncle has planted in his yard outside of taipei. I forgot to mention that i conveniently have a free and fresh source of papayas/lemons/kumquats/leafy greens/herbs? he lives alone and gives his extras to me when he comes into the city, so nice!

I think i’m going to have to call my mom this weekend and ask what she used and how she did it. i remember how the dish tastes, not how she made it.

I am not surprised to find that I know gai lan by its Cantonese name. What Chinese I know I have learned from two sources: Hong Kong movies (I adore Wushu films), which are in Cantonese, and from Cantonese proprietors of various Asian markets and restaurants. So, my Mandarin is woefully lacking.

That other leafier green, not so bitter could have been what I know as choy sum–it looks exactly like gai lan if you glance at it, but the texture is crisp and juicy–gai lan is firm and dry–and the flavor is lighter and for want of a better term, “greener.” It has an herbal flavor sort of like mizuna, if you have ever had that. You cannot cook it as long as gai lan, because it will lose its water and thus its crunch and texture, but it tastes really good in a stir fry, or as a garnish in a braised dish or a soup.

That may be what your Mom cooked with the beef.

And what a great coincidence that you have a jar of it in your fridge!

Danielle and Rose–as for balancing flavors to the meat or other ingredients I am using–that is something I have learned almost exclusively from deep study of Chinese cuisines, as well as my training in classical French cooking. It is something I started thinking about in culinary school, and as I started really working with Cantonese cooking in the past few years, I really started to understand the many flavors of fermented soybeans and how great Chinese chefs and home cooks have used them for centuries to bring out the natural goodness of their main ingredients in a dish.

That is what I love best about Chinese cookery. Not only is it in general healthy and beautiful, there is enough for me to learn over a liftetime to keep me forever fascinated. I will never learn the totality of all there is to know, and that is a wonder and a joy to me.