We do not eat salted vegetables all that often but I love it with porridge. However, I prefer our own locally-preserved salted vegetables as I feel they are much nicer, a whole lot nicer than the ones from China, Thailand or wherever.
The vegetable sellers at the wet market would use their unsold greens to make them. I like the kua chai (mustard greens) ones the most but one morning sometime ago, when I was buying fish and prawns at one stall, there was a lady at the next stall and she asked me if I wanted to buy her salted vegetables but hers was a mix of kua chai and chai hua (sawi). I decided to take a kilo, only RM4.00 and since then, we had had it twice.
The other day, I decided to cook the last batch…
…and since it was our no-meat Friday, I could not do it the way my missus would usually, with marinated pork belly and whatever other ingredients.
I sliced the salted vegetables very thinly…
…and prepared the ingredients…
I intended to just use ginger and garlic but my missus said there must be shallot and chili too. In place of meat, I had some prawns and also a few fish balls that I made using the Jakar fish paste.
To start off, I fried the ginger in a bit of oil, followed by the sliced shallot and then, the garlic and chilli. Next, the prawns went in and once they were cooked, the fish balls followed. Lastly, the salted vegetable went in. I added a sprinkling of sugar to counter the saltiness of the vegetables and a bit of water so the dish would not be too dry.
Finally, I dished everything out onto a plate…
Yes, it was very nice and went absolutely well with the porridge we had that day, just that it was not all that salty. My missus said that I soaked and rinsed it in water too long, something not that necessary when cooking our own local-made salted vegetables. She said she would just wash them before use and that would be enough.
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 
My favourite. So cheap, only RM4/kg but over here is damn expensive. Usually sold at the market is kua chai. Never know chai hua can be used for this. I usually cut my ginger in thin stripe and fried exactly the way you did. Yummy!!!
Yes, so cheap, RM4 can eat three times! I thought we usually use ginger only and maybe, chili as well like how I will only use garlic for fryng vegetables, dunno my missus adds a whole lot of the rest.
I love this salted vegetables braised with roasted pork leg. My auntie cooked that before and it was so good.
That lady told me I could fry it with the canned stewed pork, very nice but I do not have that in the house. Not so into tinned stuff from China these days.
I bought the dried salted ones called Mui choy at the sundry shop two days ago… haven’t cook it yet, must buy the pork belly first… then go with porridge, best!
We have that too, missus will cook pork belly with it.
I like to eat saltex vegetables with porridge. My mom has never tried cooking salted vegetables like that at home.
Definitely one of the best condiments to go with plain porridge.
*salted
Gotcha!
My man likes the local salted veggie too. With porridge, stir fry with anchovies or meat, it is good.
Definitely nicer than those from elsewhere. We never like those – that is why we seldom eat salted vegetables – will have to go to the central market to buy…and may not be available. May be a lot after this lockdown, all the vegetables not sold.
Oh yes, I can see how just a little salted veg would really enhance a bowl of porridge.
It sure does!