Water spinach with fermented soya beans

By: Luke Nguyen
From: Luke Nguyen's Greater Mekong
Serves: 4
Photographer: Stuart Scott

I woke at 4am to get to a water spinach village in time for the morning harvest. The whole village gets involved: men, women and children. Their working day begins as the sun rises; they step out of their wooden stilt houses and straight onto narrow canoes and row to the middle of the fields, where they pull and chop the spinach out of the water. There were water spinach fields as far as the eye could see, an endless carpet of breathtaking greenery, dotted with canoes and conical hats. Water spinach is my absolute favourite green vegetable. It is succulent yet crisp, and so versatile. Cook it in soups, toss it through salads and noodles, or stir-fry it with other ingredients. It is also known as kangkong, Chinese spinach, swamp cabbage or morning glory. When buying fermented soya beans, go for the brown ones sold in glass jars.

Ingredients

Quantity	Ingredient
450g	water spinach
2 tablespoons	vegetable oil
4	garlic cloves, smashed
2 tablespoons	oyster sauce
2 tablespoons	fermented soya beans
2 teaspoons	liquid palm sugar or shaved palm sugar
1	long red chilli, finely sliced

Method

Wash the spinach well. Tear the spinach into 4 cm lengths, discarding any tough thick stems towards the bottom.
Add the vegetable oil to a hot wok and sauté the garlic over high heat until slightly browned.
Add the spinach and toss for 1 minute. Now add the oyster sauce, soya beans and palm sugar and toss for a further minute.
Transfer to a serving plate, garnish with the chilli and serve.