Quick fried watercress is quite crispy and healthy to our body.
In the season of winter, watercress provided on the market is so fresh. It becomes one of my favorite veggie.
What is watercress?
According to Wikipedia, watercress (Nasturtium officinale) is a fast-growing, aquatic or semi-aquatic, perennial plant native to Europe and Asia, and one of the oldest known leaf vegetables consumed by humans.
Usually watercress has leaves in deep green and crisp stems. In Chinese, we call this type of leave veggie as 西洋菜. I usually prepare small bunch of watercress during hot pot dinner. Watercress can be used in stir-fry recipe, soup recipe or salad. Besides, in the northern part of China, it is also used as the ingredients in dumpling or buns fillings.
Following is a picture of fresh watercress.
Benefit of watercress
Watercress is very low in calories, but it contains rich phytonutrients, vitamin C and Vitamin A. And it is said that eating watercress daily may help to reduce DNA damage to blood cells and thus can help to resist damage caused by free radicals.
In Chinese traditional medicine, watercress can help to moistening lung and thus help to relieve a cough.
To make this quick fry watercress, firstly we need to remove the firstly part of stems. And wash carefully and finely cut into small pieces. Than I stir-fry the watercress with garlic and dried chili peppers.
During the stir-fry process, water starch is strongly recommend when the watercress pieces are half-cooked. The water starch can help to keep the deep green color and reduce the lost of nutrition such as vitamin C.
- 1 bunch watercress around 8 oz
- 2 garlic cloves
- 3 dried chili pepper
- ½ tablespoon peanut oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons water
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
- Wash the watercress carefully; remove the withered and yellow and also the old stems.
- Cut watercress finely into small pieces. Set aside and drain.
- Cut chili pepper into sections and slice the garlic cloves.
- In a small bowl, add cornstarch, water and salt. Mix well to make the stir-fry sauce.
- Heat up peanut oil in wok, add chili pepper and garlic slices to stir-fry until aroma.
- Add watercress in. Do a quick stir-fry until the watercress is half-cooked.
- Pour the sit-fry sauce in and quick fry again for around 1 minute.
- Transfer out and serve hot!
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