Last night I made the Stir-Fried Napa Cabbage with Vinegar and Chiles recipe from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook.

The recipe introduces no new ingredients nor techniques. It is very simple and straightforward. The sauce is sugar, Chinkiang vinegar, and light soy sauce. Garlic and dried chiles are cooked in oil, then the cabbage is added, then the sauce is added, and then it’s done. Very simple.

The end result was tasty. My wife described it as “better than normal cabbage,” which is more of a reflection of her low view of cabbage than for this dish. I thought it was good. The flavors reminded me of Southern greens with hot pepper vinegar, a condiment common in our family. It’s simply hot peppers in a shaker bottle filled with vinegar and is a common seasoning for dishes like collard greens. The chile, vinegar, cabbage combination was reminiscent of that type of dish. But it’s also similar to the Sichuan-Style Hot and Sour Stir-Fried Shredded Potatoes which I did not like. I guess the chile/vinegar combo tasted more at home with the cabbage than potatoes for me.

This will be a good quick side dish for us.

I am cooking my way through J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook. Read more about it.