| This guide to vegetarian food is an easy to use | | | | mun, and jeng (steamed) dishes. Incidentally, |
| reference guide. It offers an accessible | | | | European dried mushrooms may be used in place |
| introduction to the wide variety of foods available | | | | of Chinese or Japanese ones; but our domestic |
| to those who either follow a vegetarian diet or | | | | fresh mushrooms, to the Oriental taste, are |
| are considering doing so. There are entries for | | | | lacking in flavor. |
| fruits, vegetables, pulses, nuts, seeds, which | | | | French beans, snow peas, green pepper, broccoli, |
| provide information on choose and nutritional value | | | | onion, asparagus tips, kohlrabi, and cabbage do |
| and how to prepare each food. | | | | well as accessories in ch ao dishes. |
| Bamboo Shoots and Water Chestnuts - The two | | | | Peas are a good ingredient with ch ao-style diced |
| queens among mixers are bamboo shoots and | | | | meat and in fried rice (chow fan).Almonds, with |
| water chestnuts. They perform as catalysts, | | | | bamboo shoots and cubed mushrooms, are a |
| marrying the flavors of anything they are | | | | prime ingredient with diced chicken. Green peas |
| combined with, while not having too much taste | | | | may be added for color. |
| of their own. It is their texture that is perfect. | | | | Turnip and eggplant each make an excellent |
| Bamboo shoots do especially well in stir-fried | | | | addition to stews of meat or of fish such as carp, |
| mixtures (ch ao) or in stews (mun). Water | | | | turbot, halibut, and cod. Soybean curd is another |
| chestnut, cut in slices, is a desirable ingredient in | | | | very good ingredient in fish stews. |
| chop suey making the difference, in fact, | | | | Bean sprouts are essential in chop suey and chow |
| between a mediocre vegetable dish and one that | | | | mein, and do equally well with any meat cut in thin |
| is very fine. Minced water chestnut is excellent in | | | | slices or in fine strips and stir-fried. |
| meatballs and even better combined with minced | | | | Onions, like bean sprouts, are essential in chop |
| shrimp. | | | | suey and good in ch ao dishes with beef, mutton, |
| Chinese Dried Mushrooms (and to a large extent | | | | lamb, pork, or veal thinly sliced or in strips. |
| fresh ones) come next; for, like the bamboo | | | | Pickled gai Choy, the mustard plant, is most |
| shoot, they mix well with, almost anything in chao, | | | | appetizing with fine strips of beef, stir-fried. |