Chao Qincai

Quick and simple, this family dish from Sichuan is also a good one to serve guests. You can use European celery or the Chinese variety, which is smaller, slightly tougher, and with a looser stalk than the European version. It is of the same species but the product of fifteen hundred years of oriental cultivation. In Chinese, European celery is inscrutably called “Western parsley.” Certain traditionalists maintain that the European version is inadequate in Chinese recipes, but I cannot ag