Roasted Baby Bok Choy

Roasted baby bok choy

The first time I saw baby bok choy at a local Asian market my first thought was “how cute!”  I immediately picked up a few of these sweet little babies and from that day on I started to use them in recipes where I would have previously used the more adult bok choy, the kind that you may regularly see in your market.  As with my local Asian market, Whole Foods market now carries baby bok choy often and I suspect that other markets do now also because of its recent popularity in mainstream cooking.   Baby bok choy is a member of the Asian cabbage family and it contains essential vitamins and minerals such as vitamin A, vitamin C, beta- carotene, calcium and fiber, all good agents for fighting cancer.  Experimenting with this baby white cabbage has been fun and I will share with you one of my favorite ways to make it, which is by roasting it with some olive oil, salt and pepper and a bit of lime.  It’s a tres simple and elegant dish.

• 6 full stalks of baby bok choy divided into individual stems, washed and dried and then placed side by side in a baking sheet
• 3-4 tablespoons of olive oil to drizzle
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 juicy lime

Preheat over to 300 F.  Drizzle the olive oil thinly covering most of each stem (use a clean finger if you have to) and sprinkle salt and pepper to taste.  Bake for 12-15 minutes and squeeze half the lime evenly on the stalks.  Bake another 3-5 minutes until stems appear wilted and there is only very slight browning on the white part of the stems.   Do not let the oven temperature exceed 300 F since high temperature can quickly burn the green part of the stalk and you will find yourself with something similar to burnt paper.   Serve with extra lime slices.  Serves 3-4 as a side dish.